


Burning Asters (Forget-Me-Not)

by CassadyFlies



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types
Genre: AU, I can't tell., Is this crack?, It might be., M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Phobias, Prison, Pyromania, Pyrophobia, pyrophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:26:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CassadyFlies/pseuds/CassadyFlies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nezushi prison AU in which Nezumi is a serial arsonist with a fire-fetish, and Shion is framed for the murder of his co-worker. Because why not.</p><p>This may well be a crack-fic. I didn't write it in that style, but it's just super weird for no reason so... Enjoy your gateway crack.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. My so-called life

The amount of terror Shion felt on the morning the prison bus pulled into the lot was the greatest he’d felt in his young life, and hasn’t been rivaled since. The muscles in his legs were seizing and his jaw was slack like his face was so terrified that it had given up on expression. His eyelids drooped, and he blinked lethargically. Was it possible to pass out from fright? Because Shion had been doing so every few minutes, then waking up a few minutes later only to spiral back into panic. To make things worse, the only other prisoner on the bus was sitting directly behind him, and kicked the back of his seat the whole ride there.

“Hey. Hey. Hey,” the guy repeated. His voice was deep, but he looked girly and small. Shion wasn’t sure how to take him.

He decided to ignore him.

“Hey, pay attention to me. You deaf? Maybe Waardenburg Syndrome with that hair, you know? I had a friend. What color are your eyes? Hey.” He continued kicking Shion’s seat. Shion’s throat was spasming from panic, and he didn’t think he’d be able to speak even if he wanted to. The bus turned right, then left, and Shion almost fell out of his seat. He felt floppy like a rag doll. His stomach clenched painfully, and he hoped he wouldn’t throw up.

“Heeeyyy…” The guy kicked his seat harder. “Kid. Hey. Pretty-boy.” He reached over and tapped Shion on the shoulder. “Hey, albino. Yo. Hey.”

As the bus began to approach the correctional facility in the distance, Shion’s panic strangely subsided. It was like his body just gave up. There was nothing left to fight; this was inevitable. He sighed, and turned to face the other prisoner. “What?”

“Pft. Virgin.” The man scoffed at him, and shut up.

A little twinge of annoyance shook in Shion’s chest, but it was instantly overwhelmed as the great metal gates of the correctional facility slid open with a great whining noise that perfectly reflected Shion’s feelings at the moment. Shion let out an involuntary squeak of terror as the bus’s wheels kicked back, and their hour-long journey from the local jail came to an end.

The silent, stoic guards pushed the two bodily from the bus, and began patting them down.

“OW! FUCK!” The other guy screamed when he was touched. “Be gentle, man, you know? Did you not just frisk us before we got on that piss-reeking bus anyway, stupid asshole pigs? What was I supposed to have grabbed in the meantime? I just came from hospital you gonna be laying hands on me, do it gently! I’m a sensitive guy. OUCH!” He yelled again as the guard scowled and patted him down harder. He tried a different approach. “Mmm, hit me harder, officer. I’ve been a bad, bad boy.” He bit his lip and panted heavily. Shion blushed a bit when he let out a moan that could rival a porn star.

The cop looked at him with disgust, but quickly hurried up his pat-down as the prisoner groaned obscenely the whole time.

Shion was silent, and just let them get it over with. When the guards decided they were clean, they shuffled off towards the multiple-layer entry. Chains clinked around their ankles, swiping over asphalt then concrete then linoleum as they made their way inside.

Shion kept his eyes on the floor as his world ended. The doors to the prison slammed shut with awful finality, and suddenly nothing existed but walls. He felt like a child admitting it to himself, but he wanted his mother. He wanted her to hold him and tell him it was okay, and that she believed him even when nobody else did. Shion’s mother had been crying since the first trial. So much so that Shion wasn’t sure he remembered what she looked like with dry eyes. It had aged her. Her hair was turning from shiny brown to white- just like his. By the end, hollow-eyed and white-haired, the two of them had looked more related than ever. The whole process had taken a little over a year, with mistrials and hung juries and mounting evidence against him until the straw that broke the camel’s back- his own father’s testimony- had sealed his fate. He hadn’t seen the man since he was in diapers, but somehow the legal system trusted him by virtue of his DNA to give scathing character references about his son. What bullshit.

“VC-103221,” a tired female voice read out. “Say your name.”

“Don’t have one.” The prisoner from the bus looked at her seriously.

The woman just blinked at him. “Kid, I need you to say your name.”

“Don’t _have_ one.” He smiled broadly. Shion briefly wondered if he was a psychopath. He’d read that psychopaths smiled like that, and acted brash when faced with authority. There would probably be a lot of psychopaths inside, he realized.

The woman just sighed. “Screw it, I know you. Don’t tell my boss. VC-55142.” She coughed violently into her hand, then gestured at Shion. “Name?”

“Shion,” Shion whispered.

“What?” She cupped her ear.

“Sh-Shion!” He spoke up, shaking with anxiety.

“Look at the camera, kid.” She pointed. A man with an old, obsolete looking camera snapped a quick picture of each of them, and that was that.

“You didn’t get my good side,” No-name pouted. The cameraman glared at him. No-name shrugged. “It’s okay, they’re all my good side.”

They were directed through another door. The whole place looked to be made up of doors. Stepping through, Shion was met with raucous noise as probably fifty other prisoners sat talking loudly in a cafeteria.

“Hey!” A guard yelled through a megaphone. “Shut up!”

The noise died down a bit, but it was still overwhelming. Shion wondered if they’d get any sort of tour, or explanation before-

“Bunk six. West block. Both’aya.” The guard shut the door, leaving them alone.

“Hey! Bunkmates!” No-name held up his hand for a high-five. Shion didn’t reciprocate. “Nobody likes a frigid virgin,” No-name informed him. “Plus, if we’re gonna be roomies, you gotta start being nice to me now. Otherwise, I’m not making you a lanyard.” He looked at Shion expectantly, then shrugged and started walking off. “West block, he said? Shit. We’re in the slums…”

Confused, Shion followed him. “You’ve been here before?”

No-name nodded. “Lots of times. Practically grew up here. Well, not here-here as a kid. In juvie. But we visited here a lot. For Scared Straight. You know how it is.” He raised an eyebrow and looked back at Shion. “Or no, you don’t. You’re a virgin.”

Shion’s eyes were wide as he followed his strange new roommate down a wide hall. “What are you in for?”

No-name stopped walking suddenly to turn around and glare at Shion for a long, menacing second. Then his face broke into a grin, and he patted Shion’s head. “We’re here.” He pointed at a small room with two cot-like beds. “Claimed!” He jumped on the one nearest the window. The ancient bedsprings groaned in protest. “I love first days… Second days suck, though. Just wait ‘til tomorrow, Shi-on.” He rolled the name across his tongue, testing it out.

Shion sat down on the other cot warily. “You’re not how I imagined prisoners being.”

No-name cocked his head at him. _“You’re_ a prisoner too, you know. We all are. And believe it or not, we have personalities.” He considered for a moment. “But I can do the tough-guy thing pretty well, too. It’s just I don’t have to here, everybody knows me. _You_ should work on the virgin-eyes, though. You’re gonna get beat.”

Shion just stared at him. “Do you have a name?”

“Nezumi,” he replied easily.

“No, a real name.” Shion frowned.

“Nope, just that. But if you’d rather not use it, you can call me anything you please and I’ll gladly call you my bitch in return.” He grinned.

Shion’s ‘virgin-eyes’ widened. “So, Nezumi then.” He nodded, and played with the hem of the blanket on his bed, a sudden and irresistible urge to laugh gripped him. It happened sometimes. In moments of stress he’d often burst out into uncontrollable laughter. He supposed it was just his way of coping.

Nezumi was staring at him intensely, and didn’t seem remotely disturbed by Shion’s laughter. “So, what did _you_ do, virgin?”

Shion fell silent, a rush of dread filling him as he contemplated how to answer. His heart hammered, and he felt beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck. His stomach turned painfully again, making Shion glad he hadn’t eaten much for breakfast.

Nezumi laughed. “Shit, you just turned green- I thought that was just in cartoons. Was it that bad? You should be in max, you psycho!”

Shion shook his head. “I didn’t do anything… Nothing…” He swallowed roughly. “I was framed for killing my coworker.”

Nezumi hummed. “That’s some shit.” He sounded skeptical. Like the entire courtroom at Shion’s last trial when he’d pleaded not-guilty.

Shion crossed his arms, annoyed. “Well, what did _you_ do?”

“Burned down a government building.” Nezumi chewed on his fingernail. “Went a little wrong, though, and I got left with some pretty nasty scars… I was in the hospital for a few weeks, chained to my bed. So this place is kind of a step up since they haven’t restrained me...”

Shion’s jaw dropped. “Why?”

Nezumi raised an eyebrow. “Because where am I supposed to run?”

Shion shot him an annoyed look. “No, why would you burn down a building?”

Nezumi shrugged. “I dunno. It’s my thing. It’s what I do.” He layed back on his bed, hands behind his head. “I’m a serial arsonist. Or, I was. They finally gave me life. That was the right call. I probably need to be in here.”

Shion shook his head in disbelief. “But… _why_ would you do that?”

Nezumi shot him a look that clearly asked why Shion was so stupid. “Who are you, my therapist? I don’t fucking know. I like fire. Arrest me.” He laughed to himself. “I guess it’s too late for that.”

A loud, annoying buzzer rang out over the speaker system.

Nezumi groaned, and sat up. “Time for lunch. We gotta go get our stuff, too. We get toothbrushes and shit. It’s pretty cool.” He rubbed his back gingerly. “I wonder if I can go back on my pain meds…” He continued muttering to himself as he trudged back towards the cafeteria.

Shion followed him silently, stunned. Was the rest of the prison like this? Or did he maybe just land himself with the strangest roommate in history?


	2. My shocking story

Shion sat at a cafeteria table, picking at his food. They had all gathered at the table farthest away from the kitchen, since apparently that’s the only one Nezumi was allowed to sit at. They didn’t want him too near the stoves.

“Like I’m gonna just snap and start fucking the burners or something. Fascists. I’m not gonna do anything,” he complained as about ten other people sat down with them.

“Nezumi! Hey man, how’ve you been?” One man with numerous facial tattoos grinned. “I haven’t seen you since I graduated juvenile!”

“Hey, Ed, yeah. I missed your fucked-up face.” Nezumi smiled back at him.

“You’re like a yo-yo in the system,” another man commented. “Did the state kick you out of the group home?”

“Psh, like a year ago.” Nezumi waved him off. “I got sent up north for a while.”

“What’d you do this time?” Another asked through a mouthful of potato. “I mean, you know, what’d you burn?”

Nezumi grinned wildly. “Oh man, guys… It was beautiful.” He bit his lip, eyes darkening. “It was the perfect windy night… You should have seen the way these huge fucking towers of flames rose into the air. They swirled around each other, just licking the night sky and roaring...” He shifted awkwardly in his seat, a slight flush coming to his ears. “I got burned, but…” He shuddered. “It was amazing.”

The first guy shook his head. “You fucking psycho.”

“I know what I like.” Nezumi shrugged. “By the way, this is my new bunkmate, Shion. He killed a guy.”

“No, I didn’t!” Shion squealed, horrified. Everyone was looking at him. He wanted to hide. “I didn’t.”

Everybody looked skeptical. After a long moment in which Shion imagined he’d shrunk to the size of a pea, one guy took pity on him and spoke up, “So, you got arrested on murder charges?”

Shion nodded silently.

“So that’s that. Doesn’t matter what you really did, all that matters is the time they give you for it.” He shoved a bite of bologna sandwich in his mouth. “How long you got?”

Shion swallowed roughly against the lump in his throat he was worried was now permanent. When he spoke, his voice was barely more than a whisper. “Life.”

The men at the table were silent, and their pitying regards hit Shion in a passive, isolating way. Like walking into a brick wall in the middle of nowhere, and suddenly realizing you weren’t facing a wall, but a giant corral and you couldn’t get out. He looked down at his lap, angrily holding back tears. His life was over. This was it. When the doors to the prison were shut- no, from the second he’d been locked in that local jail, his fate was sealed. He was dead, and this was purgatory. Dirty white floors, dirty gray walls, and dirty people clad in beige. This was waiting. This was a life of utter stationary solitude. This was perpetual stillness.

He lost his appetite. “I’m gonna go get my things from commissary…” He stood and grabbed his tray.

“Wait, Shion.” Nezumi grabbed his arm.

“What?” Shion looked at him, wanting more than anything for someone to tell him he was good. Good boy. You’re doing fine. Like a dog, but he craved it. Even from his fire-fetishist, burn victim roommate.

“Can I have your juice?” He pointed at Shion’s tray.

Shion blinked. “Oh. Yeah.” He handed it over, and went to clear the rest of his tray. Just staring at the unappetizing remainder of his meal made him feel sick. This is how he’d eat for the rest of his life. Never again would he taste his mother’s baking. He looked down at the colorless scrubs he wore. This is how he’d dress for the rest of his life. That purple sweater from his best friend’s late grandmother- he’d never wear it again. He staggered over to the commissary booth, barely able to see where he was going. The dead-eyed man that ran the booth handed him a parcel in exchange for his VC number. That was now his name. 55142. Violent Criminal 55142. _Murderer_ 55142\. Not Shion. He couldn’t be just Shion anymore.

“Where’s the bathroom?” he gasped. The commissary man pointed, and Shion turned away without another word. Blindly, he made his way into a stall- no door- and fell to his knees gagging violently. His whole body shook, and he broke out into a cold sweat all over. The floor seemed to spin below him, trying to land him on his face on the grimy linoleum as horrible nausea overtook him.

“Best not to let anyone else see you doing this,” a mirthful voice behind him quipped.

Shion coughed, and looked over his shoulder. His smug, obnoxious roommate was standing in the empty doorframe, arms crossed, staring down at him with a smirk. “Go away,” Shion croaked, and turned back to the toilet.

“It’s a free country,” Nezumi retorted. “For most. The rest of us… We might as well be dead, huh? You might as well be dead. Accept it. You’re never gonna leave. This is your life, and it’s going to end in here. Maybe even in that very bed in number six, west block. You’re gonna get old and break and crumble ‘til you die, alone and sad, never having seen a world without walls again.”

That did it. Shion retched and vomited, arms shaking so bad he nearly fell. He coughed, and tears streamed down his face. “I wanna go home!” he sobbed, body convulsing as he threw up once more before he sat back and just cried. It was the first time he’d really sobbed since his arrest. He remembered the day in painful detail, especially the parts he wanted to forget.

He stood in the control center of the Environmental Protections Agency, face as bloodless as the floor was bloody. A body lay prone on the floor, spasming in death throes. Shion had run to it’s side, and turned the body over to find himself face-to-face with a terrified man he’d known for the past four years he’d worked in that department. He gasped when he saw Shion, aspirated on blood, and in his panic, tried to attack Shion with all the remaining strength he had. Shion held tight, finding himself unable to let go as the man scratched him, punched him, then finally died in his arms.

That’s when the police arrived. The dead man had called 911 as he was bleeding out on the floor, and the only thing he’d managed to say was ‘help,’ before his phone was stepped on and crushed by his assailant. Five minutes later- just enough time for Shion to arrive, and for the guilty one to escape, the police had burst in. All they could see was the evidence in front of them. Shion, attack wounds on his face and arms, covered in someone else’s blood, and the corpse, defense wounds on his right forearm, and several deep gashes in his chest. Dead in Shion’s lap.

“I- I- He’s- H-he’s-” Shion had stammered as the police arrived and immediately arrested him. “I d-d-d-d-didn’t, I d-d-didn’t do-” His teeth were chattering hard, but words were futile anyway. His hands were literally red. Someone tossed a towel over his head as they left the building, to guard him from the eyes of the collecting crowd. Everything hit him when they let him call his mother. He’d explained the whole thing over the phone through gasping sobs until one of the cops watching him finally cut him off, took the phone, and re-cuffed his wrists. They let him shower in the county jail, under close supervision. Then, they’d replaced his bloody clothes with prison scrubs and locked his cell. He sat in the cold dark, only one cell down from the over-crowded drunk-tank where people chatted in slurred tones, angry, but together. Shion was alone. There were two cots in his cell, but they wouldn’t let anyone near him. When his mother arrived, she fell to her knees in front of the bars, sobbing brokenly for her son’s soul and crying out for a god she’d never believed in before to save him.

“Mother, I’m innocent,” he’d pleaded with her as she bawled. “Mom, I love you. Please don’t cry. I didn’t do it. I didn’t. I didn’t kill him. Mama, please.”

She swore she believed him. Everyone he knew swore they believed him. But nobody did. He could see the fear and disgust in their eyes. Not even his lawyer had believed him. She fought her best, but had begged Shion to plead guilty. She said he might even get a chance at twenty-five years with a plea of insanity. Then, she could get him sent to a mental asylum. She said with heavy medication, he could even be allowed to live in a halfway house and have a job in a factory. He could “contribute to society,” she’d said. “You could still have a life,” she’d promised. Shion refused. He was innocent. He hadn’t done it. So why didn’t anyone believe him?

Now in prison almost exactly a year later, Shion still shook with fear and confusion. He didn’t understand how something like this could happen. He’d always had faith in the justice system to provide, well, _justice._ Yet, here he was, condemned to die in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. “I want to go home!” He sobbed as Nezumi stared at him with repulsion.

“God, shut up. We all do. Just… god, shut up, you’re so annoying.” He prodded Shion in the back with his foot. “You’re gonna get yourself beat up. Or worse. Don’t be a bitch, damn.” He kicked Shion again, a little harder.

“I want my mom!” Shion wailed, ignoring Nezumi’s comments. “I want to die!” His muscles contracted, and he fell on the floor in a heap, hugging his chin to his chest. “I don’t wanna live here, I wanna die! I’m gonna kill myself.” He gasped, opening his eyes. “I can’t live here, I’m gonna kill myself.” He pushed himself up, suddenly much calmer with his new plan in mind.

“No you’re not,” Nezumi said, kicking him again with full force.

Shion barely felt it. “Yes I am!” he protested, standing shakily. “Who would even care? I’ve got no value anymore. Who would miss me? My mother? She’d be better off without the shame of me being alive.”

“Nobody would miss you,” Nezumi said, surprising Shion. “Nobody gives a shit if you live or die. Actually, there’s probably a lot of people who want you dead.”

Shion sniffed, nodding. “I should give them what they want.”

“No you shouldn’t.” Nezumi rolled his eyes. “Listen, Shion, life isn’t about shame and honor, okay? Life is about living. That’s it. There’s no reason to end it now, you’re on a roll. How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” Shion replied, wringing his hands.

“Yeah, and fuck you for it.” Nezumi folded his arms. “You had nineteen years on the outside, doing whatever you wanted. You probably had parents, and friends, and girlfriends. I bet you got to go to the beach, and see movies, and eat ice cream. Right?”

Shion nodded. “Yeah, most of that.”

“Great. Good for you. You had a good run. Now you’re here, and you’re stuck here, so get used to it. Your life isn’t over, it’s just different now. Chill.” He narrowed his eyes. “Are you here to tell me my life is worthless?”

Shion shook his head. “No, of course not, but-”

“Because I’m here for life same as you, you know.” Nezumi interrupted. “And I’m nineteen too. You wanna know how many consecutive years I had free?”

Shion gulped, and said nothing.

Nezumi told him anyway. “Ten. My grandmother finally turned me in. I’d been burning since I was six, and I guess she had enough. I went to a juvenile detention center, where I stayed for six months at a time before they let me go. Of course, as soon as I was out I’d burn something else, and they’d have to send me back. I went to therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, hypnotists, Scared Straight, reform camps, and everything else they could find. When I was thirteen, she gave me up altogether and left me with the state. Since I was ten, I’ve never been free for more than a couple months at a time. And now that I’m an adult, I’m here for good. So, should I kill myself, Shion?”

Shion just gaped.

“Well?” Nezumi prompted. “I’ve been in the system for almost half my life. No parents, no friends, no anybody. Even if they were to let me go, I’ve been released from foster care. What am I supposed to do? I’d be homeless. And you would be too. Do you think if you’d only gotten ten years, maybe five, that your life would go back to normal when it was over? Hell no. You wouldn’t be able to find a job or a place to live, so what would you do? Go back to your mother? She hates you. Everyone hates you. Right here is the best place for you to be, so get used to it. Death is nothing. Death is stupid. Get over yourself.”

Shion felt strangely better. “Thanks, Nezumi.”

“God, don’t fucking _thank_ me,” he groaned. “You’re hopeless.” He tossed his hands in the air and walked away. “I take it back. Kill yourself. I don’t fucking care.”

Shion smiled as he cleaned himself up. It seemed like he’d just made a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw. <3 I guess this is homologous to the scene where Shion sees himself with the white hair and the scar for the first time. Except with pyrophilia and backstory.


	3. My strange addiction

It took Shion two weeks to fall into routine. Two weeks before waking up ceased to be painful, and going to sleep ceased to be an impossible task. Two weeks before he could sit at a cafeteria table and not be afraid of the people who sat with him. Two weeks, and his crippling hopelessness subsided into a dull depression. Shion could have sworn he was closing his eyes in one place, and opening them in another. The whole prison seemed like an infinitely regenerating videogame landscape, and Shion was getting used to wandering. Just like home. He’d always had a terrible sense of direction.

He brushed his teeth with his eyes half-closed. He was tired. He’d spent the day packing small crates into larger crates before loading them on a small truck to be taken to a bigger truck. In between, he’d had an individual therapy session (requested by his mother) and a group therapy session (required by the state). He was on Sertraline, Clonazepam, and Abilify. It made him feel sleepy and kinda good all over. He’d thought it was a pretty heavy regimen until he’d seen what Nezumi took every day. Nezumi had to go down to the nurse three times a day to get a cringe-worthy amount of MAO inhibitors, Fluoxetine, and sometimes Clozapine depending on the time of day. For the next thirty minutes to an hour after he took his dosage, he was pretty hard to talk to. He usually just sat on his bed, staring at the wall and saying nothing.

One time, when Shion had been feeling brave, he’d braided Nezumi’s hair just to see how many little braids he could get done before his zombified roommate regained the mindfulness to hit him. Nine. He’d gotten punched in the eye for it, and Nezumi had been sent to solitary for a day for assault. When he came back that night, he was understandably grumpy.

Shion, feeling guilty, had tried to make friendly small talk. “So, how come you’re hair’s like that?”

Nezumi just stared.

“You know, everyone else has to keep it above their ears. Why is your hair long?” He hugged his pillow against his knees, feeling very much like a teenage girl at a slumber party. He giggled. Maybe it was the drugs.

“Religion,” Nezumi responded shortly.

“You’re religious?” Shion asked, genuinely interested. “Which one?”

Nezumi didn’t answer.

“Did your parents teach you religion?” Shion pressed, fascinated. His mother hadn’t raised him with any particular religious beliefs, but he’d always sort of wished she had. It seemed really nice.

“No, they died.” He narrowed his eyes.

Shion felt bad. “Oh. I’m sorry. Were you very young?”

“Obviously,” Nezumi retorted. “Otherwise they would have taught me.”

Shion was quiet for a long moment. “How did they die?”

Nezumi lied down in bed, facing the wall, and didn’t say another word. The lights shut out a moment later, and the guards locked their cell and called for silence. Disappointed, Shion tried to fall asleep.

He was woken in the middle of the night by a strange noise. A dull thumping sound was coming from Nezumi’s side of the cell. Shion sat up, squinting in the dim light. “N’zumi..?” He asked sleepily.

Nezumi was sitting in fetal position on his bed, smacking his head against the wall as he rocked back and forth. He just shook his head when Shion spoke, and held up a finger telling him to wait.

“S’wrong?” Shion mumbled, rubbing his eyes. “You ‘kay?” He slapped himself on the cheeks. These new medications were making it difficult for him to wake up.

Nezumi stuck out his palm, trying again to halt Shion’s questions. “Sh,” he managed to say. “Wait.” He breathed deeply. “I can do it.”

Whatever he was trying to do, Shion was concerned. He looked awful. Even in the near dark, Shion could see the pallor and contortion of his features. He looked to be in serious pain. “Hey, Nezumi, do you need--?”

“Shut up,” Nezumi interrupted him. “Just fucking shut up, I can do this.” He shook and gasped a few times before he stopped rocking. Shion thought that was a good sign until-- “I’m gonna burn!” A choked whisper burst from Nezumi’s mouth. “It’s gonna burn, we’re gonna die, there’s s-so-so-s-so-” He was hyperventilating.

Shion stood shakily, and walked over to Nezumi’s bed, sitting down beside him. “Hey, whoa- relax. What’s wrong?”

Nezumi grabbed Shion’s night shirt roughly, and buried his face in Shion’s chest. “Don’t touch me,” he sobbed.

“You grabbed me,” Shion reminded him.

“I need to get away. I need to run away. This place is gonna burn. I’m gonna die.” He gasped, grabbing Shion tighter. “Let me go, don’t touch me!”

“You’re touching me,” Shion told him again. “You can let go all on your own.”

“They’ve got lighters.” Nezumi looked up at Shion, eyes wide and lost in delusion. “They’re gonna start a gas leak and blow us up. I saw them messing with the dials. They’ve got the guards in on it.”

Shion patted his head awkwardly, a little nervous. He probably would have been terrified if it weren’t for the high doses of anti-anxiety medications he was currently on. “You’re delusional.”

“I’m right!” Nezumi was still whispering as if someone was listening in on their conversation. “They’ve got flamethrowers in the tool shed.” Tears were streaming down his face. “They’re going to burn us all!”

A voice rang out from across the hall. “Is Nezumi freaking out?”

“Yeah,” Shion called back, a bit startled. “What do I do?”

“Check under his mattress. Sometimes he keeps cheeked Clonazepam under there. If not… Good luck. You probably won’t sleep tonight.” The voice laughed, along with several others.

Shion frowned. “He’s not prescribed any Clonazepam.” That was one of Shion’s drugs, so he was sure.

The voices laughed louder. “Good luck, then! That psycho’s the worst fucking cellmate you could get. He’s batshit crazy.”

“Knock him across the head!” another voice suggested. “I don’t wanna have to hear him either.”

“It’d do him some good,” yet another voice called. “I’m gonna fucking beat his ass tomorrow if he can’t pull it together.”

Half of west block murmured it’s concurrence. It made Shion anxious. What could he do? Desperately, he felt under Nezumi’s mattress, searching for anything he might have hidden. To his surprise, his fingers hit a round tablet. “What’s this?” He showed Nezumi.

Nezumi’s eyes were half closed, and he was shaking. “C-c-clo-clo-”

“Clonazepam?” Shion asked, hopeful.

Nezumi shook his head. “C-c-clozapine.”

Shion paled, and understood. “You skipped your antipsychotics?” He grabbed Nezumi by the chin, forcing eye contact. “Why would you do that? How many have you skipped?”

“Th-th-they- they-...” Nezumi’s eyes closed, and his body stiffened. His mild trembling turned violent, like a seizure. Shion struggled to make him lie down.

“Dammit, dammit, damn…” Shion restrained his roommate’s hands as Nezumi clawed at his own skin. In a little over thirty seconds, Nezumi stilled and Shion tried again. “Why didn’t you take this?”

“‘S not right…” Nezumi slurred. “They’re gonna do the right now when I’m sleep because ineptitude…”

“What?” Shion’s concern grew. “Listen to your words. Talk carefully.”

Nezumi looked frustrated. “I _said,_ they’re gonna right now when I’m asleep with clozapine and burn the building.”

Shion managed to put the scrambled sentence together. “You won’t take it because you don’t want to be out of it when they come to burn you?”

Nezumi choked on a sob. “They’re gonna light this place on fire.” He pushed himself back into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around Shion who took the opportunity to stick the pill in Nezumi’s mouth.

“Swallow that,” he commanded. Nezumi did as he was told, and Shion sighed with relief before prying Nezumi off of him so he could search under the mattress for any more. He found five. Nezumi typically took two a day, so he’d probably been skipping his medication for the past three days. Maybe that explained the earlier catatonia in which Shion had been able to braid his hair. Maybe that explained the violent outburst when he snapped out of it. Maybe that explained a lot of things. Pocketing the five pills, Shion sat back down on Nezumi’s bed, and immediately felt dizzy. He waited for the moment to pass, then sighed. “Are you gonna remember this in the morning?”

“Are you?” Nezumi replied, smirking at him. His voice was clear, and he looked fairly calm save for an intermittent tic in his shoulder.

“Yeah.” Shion frowned. “Of course.”

Nezumi held up his hands innocently. “Just that you’ve been staring at the wall blankly for the past ten minutes. I thought you broke or something. Also, you asked me that same question three times before.”

Shion sighed. “Sorry, I know I space out a lot.” He’d done it ever since he could remember. It worried his mother, but he’d never found it to be a problem. He always snapped out of it pretty quick. He was just a spacey guy.

“Hm.” Nezumi looked skeptical. “Well, as for me, right now I can’t remember anything from the beginning of this until after the seizure. That might change. But I’ll remember this.”

Shion nodded to himself. Then, something struck him. “You know, I thought you _liked_ fire.”

“I hate it,” Nezumi admitted. “It’s a phobia that doubles as a fetish. It sucks.”

Shion nodded again, taking that in. “You burned down buildings.”

“I like causing fires. I like the control.” His shoulder ticked again.

“Since you were six.” Shion remembered, a horrible hypothesis dawning on him. As long as Nezumi was being honest, he might as well ask. “How did your parents die?” He almost didn’t want to know, because he knew what he would hear. He didn’t want to be right, but curiosity was killing him.

Nezumi hesitated, but answered. “In a forest fire.” Shion’s suspicions were confirmed. “When I was five.” Both his shoulders ticked hard, and he blinked rapidly. “I saw them burn.” He sighed, eyelids heavy, and took Shion’s hand.

“Why are you telling me this?” Shion asked.

Nezumi looked at him with tears in his eyes. “Because it’s gonna come out soon enough. I’m here for the rest of my life. How am I gonna keep secret something so fundamentally a part of who I am? Especially when it’s the reason I’m here in the first place.” He pulled his knees into his chest, looking to Shion very much like the child he was. He was so young. They both were. “I’m not psychotic, Shion. I’m not schizophrenic like they diagnosed me.” His stare reached beyond the walls of their cell, into some world Shion knew nothing of. “It’s just a phobia. That’s all.”

Shion nodded and believed him to a point. Maybe he wasn’t schizophrenic per se, but he certainly did have serious compulsions and what definitely looked like psychosis that wasn’t really a part of a normal phobia. Was it? “What…” He tried to phrase it as gently as possible. “What is it that makes you keep burning things? If it causes such terror?”

Nezumi nodded slowly, processing. He took a breath. “It feels really good. You can’t possibly understand how amazing it... Ever since I was little, every time I started a fire it felt like salvation. It felt like heaven. Like… inconceivably miraculous. But that feeling would crash, and suddenly panic would drag me to hell. The worst-” He shuddered. “The worst terror you can imagine, then times ten. I would scream for hours. Until my throat was bloody.” He swallowed hard. “But everything was better when I got another lighter in my hands. Even just holding it and thinking about starting a fire would make me calm. Tingly. Floaty. Then actually doing it was like the world’s best orgasm, but mental. Like everything is perfect and painless and utopian.”

They sat in silence for a long while, Shion unsure of what to say. Eventually, Nezumi continued on his own. It seemed now that he was talking, he wasn’t going to stop. Shion wasn’t complaining. There was a sort of morbid beauty to Nezumi’s story. He wanted to hear more.

“So, it becomes all you can think about. Ordinary life is of no interest. Like an addict, all you can think about is when you can get your next fix. Old sheds, wooden buildings, grassy fields, anything that looked like it would burn nicely became an object of my attraction. Dumpsters, old mattresses, oh god- people’s _hair._ I wanted to burn someone’s hair _so badly.”_ He squeezed Shion’s hand tight, reminding him they were in fact holding hands at that point. Shion decided not to react to that piece of fact, since it was by far not the strangest thing happening at the moment. “And as a kid, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me. I assumed everyone was like that. So I got paranoid.” Words were spilling out of Nezumi’s mouth, truth repressed for years finally exposed in their dark prison cell, and it didn’t seem like he could help himself but to speak. “I assumed every other child wanted to burn my hair just as badly as I wanted to burn theirs. I started thinking people were out to get me, and people wanted to light me on fire. It made my clothes itch, thinking about how someone could simply walk up and set them aflame. I wasn’t allowed to cut my hair for religious reasons, so I started tying it up and keeping it under a hat. I started wearing tight clothing that I figured would be harder to light. For a long time, I wore this rubber rain jacket no matter what the weather. That’s when my grandmother started noticing something was wrong. She asked me, and I was honest. I thought I was normal.” He laughed mirthlessly under his breath. “She turned me in when I was ten, after I lit a girl’s hair on fire. Because she knew it wasn’t just childhood stupidity or misbehavior, but the first sign of things to come.”

Shion was horrified and enthralled at the same time. “And therapy didn’t…?”

Nezumi shook his head. “I tried everything. Negative and positive reinforcement, electroshock that tried to associate fire with something bad, even just keeping me away from all things flammable didn’t work.” He laughed. “We even tried this thing where they had me jerk off to videos of burning buildings, then switch over to porn when I came to try to associate orgasm with sex. None of it made any difference.”

Shion’s eyes widened. “So it really is sexual?”

“Mhm.” Nezumi smiled sadly. “It got to be that way when I hit puberty. Unfortunately. Because that means I can’t come without triggering a panic attack.”

That sounded horrifying. No wonder the dizzying amount of medications Nezumi was given daily. No wonder… everything. How completely frustrating. And he was just… _like_ that. There was nothing he could do. Nothing that could be done. Shion felt bad for him. “Wow.”

Nezumi nodded, and yawned. “I know. Inconvenient, isn’t it? And it’s kept me incarcerated my entire life.” He laid down in bed, apparently having exhausted himself. “So, what you just saw from me- and what we’ll never speak of again- wasn’t psychosis. That’s what a panic attack looks like. For future reference.” His eyes fluttered closed, and he shoved Shion off his bed weakly. “Go to sleep. I’ll burn your hair if you tell anyone what I told you.”

Mutely, Shion laid back on his own cot, and fell into a shaky sleep plagued by visions of scorching flame and mountains of medication. He was glad to wake up a few hours later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I give. This is crack. For real.


	4. Mystery Diagnosis

Uproarious chants filled the prison one morning a few months into Shion’s incarceration. The lights were turned on an hour earlier than usual, and sleepy, confused prisoners shuffled down to the cafeteria in a groggy queue. Nezumi grabbed a handful of Shion’s shirt, letting himself be lead, eyes closed, down the hall.

“Eighteen to twenty-five, This is where we draw the line! N-A-M-I, Don’t assign our children life!”

“What’s happening?” Shion muttered to Nezumi, who shrugged.

“Dunno. There’s people outside, though.” He pointed to one of the small, bar covered windows. Shion made his way over, standing on his tip-toes to see out. Beyond the gates, what looked like hundreds of people were holding hands in a circle around the prison.

“It’s NAMI,” Ed with the facial-tattoos said. “They’re probably here about Shion.”

“Me?” Shion squeaked. “Why do you say that?”

“You’re young, and even though you got life, you’re a virgin from a well-off family.” Ed shrugged. “So NAMI claims you.”

“What’s Nami?” Shion asked, playing with the hem of his scrubs nervously. He didn’t like the idea of being claimed by some random group.

“Stands for National Alliance of Mental Illness,” Nezumi explained, looking out the window too. “Oh yeah, they’re definitely here for Shion.”

“But I’m not mentally ill!” Shion protested. “Maybe they’re here for you.” He pointed at Nezumi. “You’re young with life too. _And_ you have a mental illness.”

Nezumi shook his head. “NAMI doesn’t care about me. I’m a poor, orphaned foster kid. I’ve been in juvie my whole life. I’m not worth their effort. You’re probably making news, though. Plus, if your mother’s got any activism in her, she probably contacted them. Kudos. Maybe you’ll get your trial reviewed.”

“That can’t be.” Shion didn’t understand it. “They must be here for someone else.”

“VC-55142!” A voice came over the intercom. Shion looked up, startled. “You have a visitor.”

Shion felt so small. Everyone was staring at him with contempt. A few moments later, a pissed-off looking guard came up to cuff his wrists, and lead him out the door to the visiting room. Shion hadn’t had a visitor for the entire three and a half months he’d been in prison. He racked his brain trying to think of who would be visiting him now.

The visitation room was full of people. However, Shion only saw one. “Mom!” He couldn’t help the beaming smile that spread across his face when he saw her, or the tears that came to his eyes when she smiled back, if weakly.

“Shion.” She looked exhausted. The lines in her forehead and around her eyes were deeper, and she looked as if she hadn’t been sleeping. “How are you, sweetheart?”

“I’m okay!” He replied honestly. “Mom, what’s happening?”

A woman in a deep purple suit stepped forward. “We represent NAMI, the National Alliance of Mental Illness. We feel your case was treated unfairly, and we’re here to try and reopen it.”

Shion was stunned. “I… Okay, wow. Yeah. Do that. That sounds great. Get me out of here. I wanna go home.” He beamed, hope igniting in his chest for the first time in a long time. “Can you look at my friend’s case too? He’s in a similar situation to me. His name is- Oh.” He forgot, he still didn’t know Nezumi’s real name. “He’s number 103221. Look into him.”

One of the representatives made a note.

Shion beamed. “This is great! So, I might get to go home soon?”

Karan spoke again, looking sad. “Well, honey, we wouldn’t be sending you home. Hopefully, we could find you a place in a nice complex where you could be looked after. There would be lots of doctors and nurses who would know how to take care of you.” Her lip trembled. “Better than me.”

Shion paled, and his breath caught in his throat. “W-wait… You want to send me to a care home? But I didn’t do it! Mom, I didn’t kill him, I swear!” He tried to approach her, but the guard that stood behind him grabbed him.

“Stay put, inmate.”

Shion felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Mom, I’m innocent! Why would I kill him? Why? I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time!”

Karan nodded placatingly. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter anymore, so let’s just try to move on from here, okay?”

Shion couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But it does matter! Of course it matters! I didn’t do it! Why would you contact NAMI? I’m not crazy, Mom. I’m not a murderer. You’ve known me my whole life! Would I do something like this?”

Her lip trembled. “Oh, Shion…” She looked to the woman in the purple suit. “Can I show him?”

She looked doubtful.

“Please,” Karan begged. “I know my son. He really thinks he’s telling the truth. He needs to see.”

“See what?” Shion was beginning to panic. “Mom, see what?”

Karan ignored him, and addressed the guard. “Can I sit with him? Please?”

The guard huffed. “One false move, inmate, and you’re going to solitary for a long time.”

Shion nodded, annoyed. “Of course. That’s my mother, I’m not gonna hurt her.” He sat down at the small table across from his mother, and took her hand. With her other hand, Karan reached to stroke his face.

“I’ve missed you.” Tears overflowed her eyes.

“I’ve missed you too!” Shion’s bottom lip trembled. It was so good to see her. He felt like himself again. He felt like the person he used to be. “I’m so glad you’re finally visiting. I know it’s difficult to get down here. But it’s been almost four months and-”

“Honey,” she interrupted him. “I’ve been visiting you every week.”

Shion hesitated, confused. “Wait- what?”

Karan nodded. “Every time they let me. I told you NAMI was coming today, you don’t remember?”

“What are you talking about?” It felt like a bad dream. A really really bad dream. Were they lying? What was going on? “I haven’t seen you since I left the jail.”

Karan nodded sadly. “I know, sweety. I know that’s what you think.” She forced a watery smile. “You were so out of it every time I came to see you. I figured you wouldn’t remember.”

Shion felt nothing but dread. His world closed into a pinhole, and his jaw clenched tightly. What was happening?

“Hold on! Stay with me, baby. Stay with me.” Karan patted his cheek. “I need you to see these pictures.”

Shion blinked, suddenly impossibly tired. “No, Mom… I didn’t…”

“Shh, shh…” Karan squeezed his hands. “It’s okay, keep focused. You can do it.” She pulled an envelope out of her purse, and spread five pictures from within it out on the table.

Shion stared at them, uncomprehending. They seemed to be stills from a security camera. The first picture showed him walking into his place of work, just like he used to do every morning. The second one showed him standing at the scene of the crime, before the murder occurred. The third, after the murder had taken place. The fourth, Shion remembered. The police had arrived, and were arresting him. The fifth was a picture from a room Shion was certain he’d never been inside. He was sitting on a couch, speaking with a woman who was taking notes.

He looked up at his mother, unsure of what to say. “I… These are fake.” They had to be. That’s not what happened. “The second picture and the fifth picture must be photoshopped. Who did this?” He looked around at the small group.

Karan looked at him seriously. “These are from a video feed recorded by the security cameras at your old job on the day of the incident.”

Shion shook his head. “Well, they’ve been messed with. Obviously. Someone’s framing me. Someone’s out to get me.” A sudden, horrible thought hit him. “Someone in this prison! It has to be! I don’t remember meeting with you, mom. They must be drugging me or something.” Fear contracted his chest when he remembered the drugs he’d taken that morning. “Someone’s trying to take me out. Is it because I’m a socialist? Because I’m questioning the system? Is it because of that podcast I made?” He was hyperventilating. “Mom, there’s a conspiracy here! Somebody’s trying to kill me for thoughtcrime!”

The guard grabbed his hands, and pulled him to his feet. “Alright, time’s up.”

“Don’t touch me!” Shion screamed, trying to break away. “Mom! Help! They’re gonna kill me!” He couldn’t breathe. The room felt to small. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? This was intentional. This was a plot. Someone was after him. “Let me go!” The world shuddered and glitched, and Shion’s vision spiraled. He was blacking out. He felt his muscles contract. Was he being tased? The last thing he saw was his mother’s terrified, tearful face before everything stopped.

He woke up in a small room, lying supine on a cot. He blinked. What just happened? His arm itched. Looking down, there was a small pinprick. They were drugging him. For sure. He sat up, and the world lurched. He leaned against the wall, feeling dizzy and motion sick. “Urgh…” He blinked lethargically, and took in the room. “I’m in solitary…” he realized. What had he done? “Hey!” He called out. “Hey!” Nobody answered. “HEY!”

“Fucking what?!” A voice responded.

Shion was relieved. “What’s happening?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s happening?’” The voice scoffed. “You’re in solitary. Nothing’s happening.”

Shion wanted to laugh. This whole situation was just so frustrating. “Why?”

“...Goddamnit, is that Shion?” The voice asked. “Chill, psycho!”

Shion frowned. “Nezumi?”

“Yeah. What the hell did you do?” Nezumi called across the hall to him.

Shion fumed as he remembered. “This whole thing’s a set up! I was arrested under false pretenses, framed for murder, and stuck in prison and labeled a psycho! All because I think capitalism is a scam and I had the guts to say so!”

“... Okay, but what really happened? Like, what got you stuck here?” Nezumi asked, exasperated.

“That’s what happened!” Shion wanted to make just one person believe him. “It’s because I figured out the truth when I talked to NAMI, and… and…” He was sobbing. “And th-they… they d-drugged me and… th-they stuck me in this cage… be-... because…” He coughed, voice full of water. “Because our government is a corrupt lie!”

“...Wow.” Nezumi replied. “Holy shit.”

“I know!” Shion choked, grateful somebody believed him. “I know!”

“No, Shion, wow you.” Nezumi clarified. “You are WAY more crazy than I thought you were.”

“No!” Shion screamed with frustration. “I’m not crazy! I’m not!” He banged his head against the wall, barely feeling the pain. He was so angry he was shaking. He punched the cold stone with his fist, hard enough to draw blood.

“Sane people don’t have to prove it,” Nezumi told him annoyingly. “And don’t hit the wall, it’s bad for you.”

Shion froze in terror. How did he know? “Can you _see_ me? Are you watching me? Is this whole prison a lie?!” He searched the roof for cameras. His world was crumbling, and he was crumbling with it.

“Shion! My god! I can fucking _hear_ it.” Nezumi explained loudly. “I can _hear_ you punch the wall! Okay? Calm!”

Suddenly, Shion was calm. Because there was nothing he could do. He gave up.

“Um… Hello?” Nezumi called.

“What.” Shion replied bluntly.

“Did you pass out? Where did you go?” Nezumi laughed. “You really are a freak.”

“How come you’re here?” Shion asked monotonously. He was so tired. He wanted to be done with everything.

“Are you serious?” Nezumi asked. “Because I punched you.”

Shion’s eyebrows contracted. “All those weeks ago?”

“No, this morning, idiot,” Nezumi retorted. “When you called me pyrophobic in front of everyone. I got a rep, asshole.”

“I didn’t say that,” Shion sighed. Everything was wrong. Everything with everyone was wrong.

“Well, someone in your body fucking did, which is why I slammed my fist into your fucking body.” Nezumi grouched back.

Shion’s eyes lit up. Could it be? It seemed as logical an explanation as anything. “Someone in my body?” He sat up straight. “Do you think-”

“No! I don’t fucking think that. I was being facetious. You need meds.” As he said it, heavy footsteps fell down the hall. “Oh, good,” Nezumi said to someone Shion couldn’t see. “Knock me out, I’m sick of listening to this guy.” He paused. “This isn’t my dose. I take clozapine at this time.”

“You’re getting injections now,” a nurse said gruffly. “The doctor will be down in a minute.”

“Wait, what?” Nezumi sounded confused. “Why?”

“You need something stronger. People are complaining. Also, we can’t risk you cheeking the pills anymore. You’re dangerous,” the nurse explained. “Take those.”

Nezumi was silent as the nurse walked down the hall, and he remained silent until she closed the door. “Shion, I’m gonna fucking kill you,” he said calmly the minute they were alone.

“I didn’t say anything!” Shion swore. He hadn’t! This day was awful.

“Who else knew I wasn’t taking my meds?!” Nezumi yelled. “Just you! When we get out I’m gonna-” He broke off suddenly as the door opened again, and lighter footfall came down the corridor. The door to Nezumi’s cell was opened again. “I don’t want that.” Nezumi told presumably the doctor.

“Well, you’re getting it. Once every two weeks. And we’re going to wean you off the MAO inhibitors.” She responded dully.

“No, I like those-” Nezumi protested. “They work well, what are you replacing them with?” He sounded panicked. “I’ve been on them since I was sixteen!”

“You’re getting a stronger dose of SSRIs.” The doctor informed. “Sit still.”

“No, I can’t have any higher dosage!” Nezumi complained. “I’m taking so much already, I’m already tolerant to sertraline and bupropion.”

The doctor sighed. “Listen, you’re on too many pills a day. We’re trying to reduce the amount you have to take. It’s a good thing.”

“No it’s not!” Nezumi fought back. “I’m gonna regress! I’m gonna go through withdrawal, and I’m gonna end up back in solitary!”

“There’s nothing we can do. Sit still.” She tried again.

“Why? What is that?” Nezumi’s voice wavered.

“Lithium,” The doctor said.

“I hate that!” Nezumi yelled. There was a short scuffle, and Nezumi cried out, “Ow! Dammit, that hurts!”

The doctor ignored him, and shut his cell. Then, Shion’s door was opened. The doctor had a large box of needles, and was staring down at Shion intimidatingly. “You too.”

“How come?” Shion asked, looking out into the hall nervously. He wondered what would happen if he just ran for it.

“Don’t even think about it,” The doctor figured out what he was thinking. “That’s exactly why. You’re going off the Abilify.”

Shion’s eyes widened. “What’s that, then?”

“Clozapine.” She held up a needle.

“No! I don’t want that! It’s so strong!” Shion stared at the needle in horror. The doctor ignored him, grabbed his arm, and stuck the needle in his bicep. “Ouch!” Shion glared at her. “Why?” She continued to ignore him as she discarded the needle and locked his cell door. A moment later, Shion felt dizzy. “Ohh…” He sighed. “Okay, I like it.”

“Baby,” Nezumi scolded, but he sounded calm too. “I hate lithium. I hate it. I hate it.” He repeated it over and over, unconvincingly.

As the Clozapine kicked in, Shion felt tired. Existentially tired. The scratchy, lumpy cot looked so inviting, Shion couldn’t help but lie down. Maybe things would be okay. Maybe. After he slept. Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's because of his socialist podcast.


	5. Monsters Inside Me

In one horrible moment, Shion understood everything. Not because anyone told him, and not because he was searching for answers. It just happened, and he wished he could return to oblivion. He was standing in a room in the prison, surrounded by guards who watched him intently. Standing in front of him was his mother, and the woman from NAMI. Everyone looked gray, like statues. Nobody moved, and nobody spoke. Shion was laughing. Something about their frozen, terrified faces was just so funny, and he couldn’t stop. It turned his vision red. The sheer humor cut his sides and wrapped like a too-tight baseball cap around his head.

His mother called his name in her calming, patronizing way. Like she was talking to a dog, or a two year old. “Shion.”

“Yes?” Shion answered through tears of mirth.

She was gone. He sat in his cell, and it was night. His feet dangled off his cot, and next to them, a pair of feet he didn’t own. Nezumi was looking at him through wide gray eyes that shone in the dim moonlight that streamed through the window. Shion gasped. He could drown happily in eyes like that. In an instant, he was filled with such overwhelming love that he cried.

Nezumi said Shion’s name in his melodic voice, full of an emotion Shion wasn’t able to place. “Shion?”

“Yes?” He responded, wanting more than anything to grab that tongue and force it to say his name again and again.

Then he was gone. Shion was alone in solitary, laying on a cot in the pitch black, staring at the swirling colors his eyes generated. He was lonely. So completely lonely. There was nobody here for him. He wanted to be touched. Nobody had so much as rested a hand on his shoulder in months, and he was desperate for human contact. He was crying still, but this time from crippling solitude.

Nobody said his name. There was nobody for him. So, he said it himself. “Shion?”

He didn’t respond with yes. He shook his head, because that name was wrong. It didn’t fit him here.

“No. That’s not me.”

Shion was a child. Shion had a future, and friends, and a mother. Shion had freedom and happiness and a mind. The one lying in the cot in solitary had no mind. He’d lost it quite some time ago. That’s the moment he understood. Number 55142 came to the full and sudden realization that he was broken. His thoughts crumpled and his breath left him like someone had sat on his chest, trying to zip closed an overstuffed suitcase. A moment later, that suitcase burst and Number 55142 screamed with anguish as a second realization hit him. He was guilty. He killed that man. He did it. He screamed until his throat was raw, and he tasted metal. He tore at his skin and kicked his legs into the darkness until he was covered with cuts, and his fingernails cracked. He beat the walls until he felt his wrists break, and the lights were switched on. He sobbed until the doctors stuck him with something that halted his tears and sent him spinning into welcome sleep.

He woke to white. He woke to the feeling and the sound and the image of white. Looking down, his clothes were white. His hands were restrained with white cloth, bound with white gauze, and his arms were weak and white and small.

After white, there was red. A loud, insistent beep struck his ears, and he looked to see pale red liquid draining steadily into his arm from an IV bag. He blinked his red eyes and noticed the red scar that circled his body. That was new. What had he done? Minor, red scratches and cuts also raked his arms and legs, self inflicted. He remembered.

Next, there was gray, and suddenly that was all he could see. A gray voice whispered gray things, and Shion turned to meet gray eyes gazing at him dully. “Shion.”

“Yes?” He answered and prayed he would stay. No more blinking away to some future time. It could be that the very next moment he experienced was as an old man, still in prison scrubs, alone in the white and red and gray and endless endless beige.

“You woke up.” Nezumi was next to him, bandaged too, strapped to his hospital bed.

Shion nodded, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “I did. I woke up.”

“How’ve you been?” Nezumi asked.

“What do you mean?” Hadn’t it been just a moment ago that they’d sat together in the captive night?

“You went to solitary for so long. I thought you would be there for good.” Purple rings under Nezumi’s eyes, and purple bruises around his neck.

Shion blinked. “I broke my wrists.” He remembered. “I hurt myself.”

“Mm.” Nezumi agreed. “I can see that. I guess that would do it.”

“I killed that man,” Shion admitted for the first time.

“I know,” Nezumi assured. “It’s okay.”

Shion wanted to cry, he was so grateful. _I’m okay. It’s okay._ “Really?”

Nezumi nodded. “Yeah. You’re gonna be fine. We both are.”

Shion’s chin quivered. “I keep forgetting things. Big chunks of time.” He felt a tear run down his cheek, then another and another. His pillow was getting wet.

“You have epilepsy,” Nezumi explained. “I’ve been listening to the doctors. You’ve been having grand mal emotional seizures. They’ve never seen anything like it.”

If relief could be painful, then that’s what Shion felt. He clung to the word like a lifeline. “Epilepsy?”

“Yeah.” Nezumi pointed with his eyes up at Shion’s IV. “They’re trying some treatment. I guess you’ve been going into psychotic fugue states. Anterograde amnesia. Pretty fascinating. NAMI disowned you, though. You’re not crazy.”

_You’re not crazy._ Those words hit Shion right in the heart, and he filled with more joy than he knew how to handle. “I’m not crazy!” He sobbed, lightheaded with elation.

“Yeah. Congrats.” Nezumi smiled at him. It was the first genuine smile Shion had seen him wear. One that didn’t look forced or sarcastic.

Another sound came to Shion’s ears a moment later. “Eighteen to twenty-five! This is where we draw the line!”

“Wait-” he looked around in confusion. “NAMI’s still here?”

“N-A-M-I! Don’t assign our children life!” It was the same chant from before.

“I thought they gave up on me?” Shion frowned at Nezumi, whose smile broadened.

“They did. They’re here for me.” He was beaming. “I guess they didn’t just want to give up when you were diagnosed, so they found the next best thing. They want to open my case again. They’re trying to get me into a program for people who need supervision. There’s even newsteams.”

Shion was stunned. “You could leave.”

“You could too,” Nezumi laughed with happiness. “The program’s at a hospital upstate. You could end up going with me.” His eyes filled with tears, and his lip quivered. “Shion, something _good_ could happen.”

Something good… It seemed almost impossible after all this time. “Wow.” He smiled. _“Wow.”_

A doctor walked into the room with two needles in hand. “Time for medication.”

Nezumi scowled. _“I don’t want lithium!”_

“Well, that’s just too damn bad.” She injected him.

“It makes me sick!” Nezumi complained, staring helplessly at the needle in his arm.

“It lowers your libido,” the doctor countered. “And it keeps you from going into psychosis, so-”

“They’re panic attacks! Give me clonazepam!” He was glaring at the spot the needle had gone in, like he could draw back out the lithium by using The Force. “I’m not psychotic, I’m _phobic!_ This stuff makes me puke, _I hate it.”_

The doctor ignored him and walked over to Shion. “We’re starting you on a new regimen of medications, hopefully it will prevent epileptic seizures.” She blinked. “Oh. You have epilepsy.”

“I know!” Shion beamed letting her stick him with the needle gratefully. “Isn’t it great?”

The doctor raised an eyebrow.

“Ignore him, he’s brain-damaged from the seizures,” Nezumi cut in.

“Yeah! I am!” Shion was overjoyed. “I had lots and lots of grand mal seizures!” He was giggling, he was so giddy from the news. “I have amnesia!”

The doctor walked back out of the room, shaking her head. A moment later, a news team burst into the room. Cameras were flashing, and a reporter held a microphone up to Nezumi’s face.

“So, young man, what are you thinking now that NAMI’s pushing to reopen your case? Extensive research has been done into treatment of adolescents with paraphilias, but the results are mixed. Do you think it’s right that you be let out of prison? Even after you hurt so many people?”

Nezumi looked stunned. Like a deer in headlights. “Can you leave? I’m sick.”

She waved the microphone around even more. “Is that your opinion? Because so many people believe that paraphilias are character flaws, not sickness.”

Nezumi squinted at her. “Are you stupid? I mean I’m literally sick. I’m in a hospital. They just injected me with some shit that’s for sure gonna make me puke in just a minute. So… fuck off or I’ll throw up on you.”

The reporter just jumped on that. “Are you saying there’s a link between pyrophilia and emetophilia? Do you have both? Where does it come from?”

Nezumi shook his head, looking thoroughly overwhelmed. “Emeto- how do you know that term off the top of your head? What the hell?”

The reporter blushed.

“I don’t fucking have emetophilia. I’m _just sick._ Alright? I’m not enjoying it or anything.” He pulled against the restraints on his arms. “Goddammit… NURSE!”

The guards were already trying to remove the reporters. They just moved over slightly to talk to Shion.

“And you, young man. You were the one NAMI was originally looking into. It seems you murdered your coworker during an epileptic fit. What do you think about this? Is epilepsy a dangerous disease?”

Shion frowned. “I didn’t release my diagnosis. Where are you getting your information?”

She pushed on. “Do you think your diagnosis justifies early release? You were given life in prison, and now there’s talk of reducing your sentence to just a few years.”

Shion was overwhelmed. “You’re telling me information I’ve never heard before. Can I talk to a lawyer? Does this justify Miranda rights? What’s going on?”

“NURSE I’M GONNA THROW UP RIGHT NOW, SO GET THESE PEOPLE OUT OF MY FACE!” Nezumi screamed, indeed looking pale.

“Mom!” Shion cried out as a man with a camera pulled back his blanket and started taking pictures of his bandages. “I’m being violated!”

“ALRIGHT!” A guard charged in, grabbing reporters and cameramen by the scruffs of their necks. “Who told you you could be here? Leave my prisoners alone!” He threw them out one by one. “This is a violation! You wanna interview my inmates? Fine! I’ll see you in prison scrubs! Get the hell out!” Finally, he got the door closed, and locked. “You okay, boys?”

Nezumi shook his head, looking green and highly uncomfortable.

“Oh. Right. Shit. Nurse!” He pressed the call button over and over, and unlocked the door to let her in. “That one.” He pointed.

Shion ignored the nurse and Nezumi, choosing to focus on the much more pleasant topic of how good the minutes before the reporters had shown up had been. He had epilepsy. He had a diagnosis they could treat. They might shorten his sentence. For the first time, he realized what was happening as his body tingled with emotion, his eyelids grew heavy, and he fell asleep.

_I’m having a seizure._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you guys think? Psychotic or phobic?
> 
> I can't decide.


	6. The Real World

Outside. Two weeks later, and Shion’s wrists were out of their splints. The sun stroked his skin like an old friend, and Shion tried to contain his feelings. He was instructed not to cry anymore, as it was a common trigger for his seizures. It was hard. Shion cried all the time. More than anyone he knew. He couldn’t help it, he was just an emotional person. The short walk from the prison gates to the bus was the best of Shion’s life. He was wearing clothes. _His_ clothes. Several layers. He had a blue shirt with a painting of a flower over a black tank top, black jeans that were warm and fit him just right, and a jacket that hugged him nicely and made him feel safe. His clothes felt luxurious, like silk. Next to him, Nezumi was dressed in street clothes as well, although they weren’t that shockingly different from prison scrubs. He had a white, ash-stained t-shirt that looked slightly burnt at the bottom, loose, washed out jeans with holes in one of the knees and that had been resewn up the side with red thread, and a once black hoodie that had turned gray and threadbare. But he looked happy, so it was good.

“I’m gonna eat a hamburger,” Nezumi said with a grin. “And I’m gonna get someone with an ID to get me some booze, and we can get so drunk.” He stepped into the bus before Shion. “I can’t believe they’re giving us a day off before we go to the hospital!”

“If we find alcohol in your system, you’re in trouble.” A guard said firmly. “It’s not a day off, your flight was delayed.”

“Tomato tomahto,” Nezumi chirped cheerfully. “We get to stay in a real hotel, and eat decent food, and there’s gonna be a heater-”

“Don’t touch the heater!” The guard warned warily. “Do you want to go back to prison?”

“I’m not gonna fucking fuck the fucking heater.” Nezumi scowled. “I mean it’s gonna be warm for once. I wanna smoke again. Shion can light me, it’s cool!” He added quickly as the guard took a breath. “I don’t wanna get sent back to that place. I won’t burn anything.” His voice was tight. “I can manage one night of freedom.”

“It’s not freedom, we have trackers on you. You can’t go more than five miles from the hotel.” The guard sat in the back of the bus, looking at Nezumi with annoyance. “And if you go farther than that, it means _I_ have to wake up and come find you. So, don’t do it.”

“Please, five miles is the universe.” Nezumi grinned, patting the seat next to him for Shion to sit. “Five miles is more than I’ve had in a long while.”

The bus rolled forward, and Shion’s stomach flipped with excitement. It was really happening. It was a five hour drive to the hotel, at which point heavy anklets were attached to both their right ankles. It was one in the afternoon, and Shion’s stomach was rumbling. His mother had filled a card with twenty dollars, plus the fifteen Shion had in his commissary account made thirty five, and Nezumi had taken out the twenty five he had in his commissary, plus the prison had given them each five dollars for dinner for a total of seventy dollars between the two of them. They felt like kids set loose at a carnival with a handful of tickets each. Shion pulled down his pant leg to carefully cover the anklet, but Nezumi didn’t seem to care. He took off down the street, stopping at the first burger place he could find.

Nezumi moaned as he sunk his teeth into his meal. “Oh my god… I missed this so much.”

Shion silently agreed. Prison food all tasted the same. Bland, with a slightly metallic taste from the can it had come from. It tasted like it was all made from the same material, just shaped differently each day. Real burgers… it was magical. Salt and fat and spices, plus real lettuce and tomatoes and pickles that crunched nutritiously. They got strawberry milkshakes, and split an order of fries. The other patrons looked over at them with concern about the noises Nezumi was making.

When they left, they ran into a nearby convenience store, where Nezumi bought a pack of cigarettes, and Shion found his favorite flavor of potato chips. At the register, Nezumi also got a lighter, which he promised was okay.

As they walked out, Nezumi looked twitchy. He lit a cigarette and glanced around. “Okay, I gotta… Don’t tell anyone, okay?” He fiddled with the lighter nervously.

“Don’t!” Shion exclaimed, grabbing his arm. “You’re gonna get sent back!”

“I won’t get sent back.” Nezumi rolled his eyes. “I’m gonna burn dandelions. It’s fun, come with me. I saw some in an alley.” Without waiting for a response, he shoved past Shion on the sidewalk, and turned into a grassy alley between two buildings. Shion followed mutely, concerned. Nezumi was sitting with his back against a brick wall, puffy white dandelion in his left hand, lighter in his right. His eyes were half-lidded, and he looked calm. Slowly, he brought the little flame to the white fluff and set it burning. It burnt quickly, in a flash of flame before dying out. Nezumi sighed, and his eyes blinked rapidly in a nervous tic. He looked up at Shion. “Wanna try?”

Shion shook his head. “I wouldn’t get that much out of it…” He sat down next to Nezumi against the wall and watched as he pulled another dandelion and set it aflame. He blushed slightly as he realized he was watching something sexual. Nezumi certainly made it look that way, with his expressions and the sensuality of his movements. It made Shion kind of uncomfortable, but he couldn’t look away. It was oddly beautiful. He ate his chips like popcorn at a movie while he watched.

“I missed this…” Nezumi breathed as he lit another. “So much.” He lit a few more before he stopped, leaning his head back against the wall, eyes closed. His shoulders ticked a few times, but he seemed mostly calm. “Mental orgasm,” he explained, opening his eyes. “I’m good now.”

Shion blushed, looking away. How Nezumi could say such obscene things so calmly was a mystery to him. Still, Shion felt a strangely good emotion he couldn’t name when Nezumi said it, and his expressions throughout the burning had enthralled Shion. Maybe he was just as guilty.

Nezumi thought about it, then handed the lighter to Shion. “Hold it for me. Don’t get rid of it, just… Hold it.”

Nodding, Shion put it in his pocket, then stood to discard the empty chip bag he was holding. When he turned around, Nezumi was right behind him, and he jumped. “Ah! I didn’t… I didn’t see you there.”

“Are you scared or turned on?” Nezumi asked bluntly, making Shion’s jaw drop. “The two are the same for me, so I can’t tell.”

“Um…” Shion panicked. “Neither?”

“Hm.” Nezumi didn’t look like he believed him. “So, are you gay or what?”

Shion stepped away, feeling interrogated. “No? I’m not.”

“But you do like guys.” Nezumi stepped forward. “Or, you like me or something. In the prison, I thought you were one of those gay-for-the-stay guys, or a virgin who just wanted to be a wife. But we’re out now, so I don’t know.”

Shion blushed deeply. He felt his cheeks grow warm. “I didn’t- But I never-”

“Alright. Whatever. You don’t have to say it.” Nezumi shrugged. “Just that we’ve got an unmonitored hotel room for this night only, so now would be the time, you know? Unless you like cameras.” He grabbed Shion’s hand and pulled him down the street. “Come on, let’s go get drunk.”

Shion’s eyes were wide, and he felt dizzy. He hoped he wasn’t about to have a seizure. This was certainly a strange day, but he wanted to remember it forever.

It took a while, but eventually someone was willing to buy them beer. They found a secluded bridge near an almost dry riverbed, and settled down. Above them was a park or something, because a moment later, music began to play from somebody’s stereo. Nezumi smiled and called up to the people, “Turn it up!”

“Hell yeah!” came a nameless response, and the music grew louder. A few seconds later, a man in a tie-dye crop top came down to meet them. “Hey, y’all wanna smoke with us?” He held up a colorful pipe.

Nezumi looked at it longingly. “Ah, dammit… We can’t. We got a drugs test in the morning.”

“Shiiiittt…” The guy said sympathetically. “Y’all army or something?”

“Ex-cons.” Nezumi lifted his pant leg to show the anklet. “So, not quite.”

The guy gaped at the device. “Oh, damn! The little blond one too? Wow. Well, we got a bonfire going if you wanna join. My friend Nicole would love to meet you, her boyfriend’s in for possession.”

Nezumi looked at Shion questioningly.

“Can you handle a bonfire?” Shion asked doubtfully.

“What do you mean?” The guy asked.

“He’s a pyro… maniac?” Shion picked a suffix carefully. “Pyromaniac. Arsonist.” He ignored Nezumi’s scowl.

“Oh shiiittt!!!” The guy clapped his hands together in excitement. “You gotta hang with us! You’re boyfriends, right? Or… prison wives?” He laughed. “We’re hella royal, royal _they_ too, but we love our boy-boy faggots always.” He raised his hands in surrender. “Or, pyros joined by circumstance, that’s cool. We respect all the kinky freaks, you know? So long as they can get with our jam.”

Shion had no idea what any of that meant. But Nezumi seemed to understand, and hesitantly agreed, so the two climbed up the side of the hill to join the small crowd at the bonfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but fun stuff going on.


	7. RuPaul's Drag Race

Nezumi’s eyes widened when he saw the bonfire. It towered to the sky, shooting sparks up taller than the trees. He twitched and reached for Shion’s hand. Shion took it, watching him carefully.

“Hey, honey, you look out of place.” A six foot four man in drag walked over to Nezumi and touched his cheek. “I’m Jonah, you want a drink?” Jonah had long bleached-blond hair that was curled meticulously to bounce at their shoulders. They had dark tan skin with white spots on the neck and arms and around one eye. They were like the perfect amalgam of male and female, light and dark, angry and loving. Shion was amazed.

Shion had never seen anyone in drag in his life so he wasn’t quite sure what the proper response was. Nezumi, however, looked more relaxed than ever as he pulled two cans of beer out of the pack they had brought and handed the rest to Jonah. “We brought some. Thanks.” Nezumi handed one to Shion.

Jonah looked between the two of them as they put the beer in an ice chest. “You’re the ex-cons? Damn, they’re putting away more and more kids every day. I feel ya, I’ve been to prison once too. Cocaine possession. I used to deal, but I’m legit now. I do a burlesque show down on fifth, you know the place?”

“Nah, we just got here. Leaving tomorrow, too. We’re still convicts, technically.” Nezumi pointed at his anklet. “Five mile radius.”

Jonah tutted, and stroked Nezumi’s hair. Shion was surprised by how okay Nezumi seemed with being touched. “Well, Momma’s gonna look after y’all tonight. Ever had a queen as your guardian angel? We look after our gaybies.”

Nezumi smiled. “Yeah. I used to perform too.”

Shion was surprised. “Really?”

“Mhm. Not much else you can do when you’ve got felony charges on you.” Nezumi snapped open his beer can with a hiss. “Got a stage name, Jonah?”

“Miss Sashay. She’s a sexy bitch. You?” Jonah took Nezumi’s hand in both of theirs.

“Eve. Newly corrupted innocence. I was real cute.” He took a sip of his drink, looking nostalgic. “You can call me Nezumi on the street, though.”

“Well, you’re still cute, Neh-zoo-mey.” They pronounced each syllable like they were making it their own unique pet name. “Your boy here’s a lucky one.” Jonah winked at Shion.

“Actually, we’re not…” Shion tried to speak up, but felt intimidated.

“You’re holding hands, child, if you’re gonna hide, hone those closet skills. Otherwise, loud and proud. Just like us.” Jonah smirked. “By the way, Eve, when you get outside, hit me up. I can put in a good word at the bar.”

“Thanks.” Nezumi nodded. “I’ll find you.”

“Mhm.” Jonah smirked. “Oh! Hold on, lemme get a pen, I’ll put my number. Should be good for a while, unless they cut my damn line again.” They walked off, searching for a pen and paper.

Shion turned to Nezumi. “I didn’t know you did drag.”

“Does it bother you?” Nezumi asked, edging towards the bonfire.

“No,” Shion answered quickly. “Just surprising.” He pulled Nezumi’s hand, dragging him away from the fire. “Please don’t burn things, these people are nice.”

Jonah returned and handed Nezumi a slip of paper, which he pocketed. Then they clapped their hands. “Everyone! Oh, what’s your name, blondie?”

“Shion.”

“Everyone! This is She-ahhn,” they pronounced it just slightly off, just like Neh-zoo-mey. Shion smiled. Something about the way Jonah said it made him feel special. “He’s the light-skinned one right here. Then this is Neh-zoo-mey with the long hair. She’s cool, she used to walk our walk, right?” Jonah smiled at Nezumi then pointed at Shion. “She-ahhn’s just an egg, but he’s real sweet so be nice. Also, they’re paroled, and got a drug test in the morning, so cut the peer pressure, you junkies.” They wagged a finger at the crowd. “Introduce yourselves, and have fun!”

About ten drunk people shouted “Hey!” and the party continued.

Nezumi grinned at Shion. “This was a complete stroke of luck. What city are we in? This is great.”

As they began to socialize, Shion was stunned by the way Nezumi code-switched with these people. It was like he was speaking another language, and in a completely different accent. Shion wouldn’t have been able to pick this voice out of a crowd.

“Oh damn, girl, no.” Nezumi sucked his teeth and smirked derisively. “Those baby dikes’d come to to my show in droves, never let ‘em touch my queer ass. I’m a gold star, for real. Shit, I wasn’t even breast fed. Mama raised a damn platinum.” Everyone laughed, understanding this form of speech on a native level. Shion just stared mutely.

“Were you c-section?” Someone asked, as if that were a relevant thing to say. Shion was beyond confused.

Nezumi pursed his lips. “Hell if I know. How many of y’all still friendly with your bio-parents? I was a foster baby. Hobo-homo. I swear, Eve was the closest I’ve come to a tit.”

Shion got that sentence fine, and tried to grab onto the conversation from there.

“Closest I’ve come to a tit was in Cisco, before gentrification. All the white people.” Jonah sighed sadly. “You could get HRT there, though. Those doctors are chill. But they kept on raising my rent, and I had to leave. C’est la fucking vie.”

Shion lost the conversation again, and officially gave up.

Several people throughout the evening asked Shion what his pronouns were, to which he had no answer. Nezumi stepped in each time, seeming more at ease with these people than anyone in the prison. After a while, it began to get dark. Shion and Nezumi sat by the fire, which was considerably lower. The music was just as loud, but had a softer tone. Everyone was settling down.

Nezumi was staring at the fire, a detached look on his face. Like he wasn’t really inside his body. Every so often, the strange, slack expression would break as he ticked.

“Do you need to go home?” Shion asked him softly. “Is it too much?”

Nezumi hesitated, then nodded. “It’s too much.”

Before Shion could move to leave, however, Jonah edged over.

“Neh-zoo-mey. What’s with the face, doll?” They looked Nezumi right in the eyes with gentle concern. “I know that expression. I don’t like seeing others wear it.”

Nezumi didn’t move away, but he didn’t exactly give an answer either. “It’s nothing.”

Jonah pursed their lips. “Bullshit it’s nothing. I’ve seen a thousand girls go off into the night with that expression, and I’ve only seen five hundred come back. Look at your boyfriend. He’s worried about you. I’m worried about you. I won’t see another good girl fall that way.” When Nezumi didn’t answer, Jonah turned to Shion. “So, what’s his poison?”

“Um…” Shion felt like a tourist in a foreign city.

“I know the addict face, tell me what he wants.” Jonah snapped their fingers impatiently.

“Oh.” Shion understood. “Fire. He’s…”

“Oh, the pyromaniac.” Jonah nodded knowingly. “So, are you really manic, or are you a paraphile?”

Nezumi looked mildly surprised, but said nothing. He ticked again, though, which must have given him away.

“Ohh…” Jonah sighed sympathetically. “Baby, is it a paraphilic phobia?” They rubbed Nezumi’s back soothingly.

Nezumi’s eyes widened. “What did you say?” His voice was weak.

“I’ve seen a thousand girls like you, don’t worry.” They wrapped their arm around Nezumi’s shoulders tightly. “Totally normal, super common. Let me tell you a piece of advice a therapist will never tell you no matter how much you pay ‘em.” They paused to make sure Nezumi was listening. He was focussed like a laser. “It’s not a bad thing. You don’t have to fix it. You just gotta work out the bugs, make sure you keep out of prison and off the streets. And I’ll tell you something else. If the rest of the world knew how you felt, if they could feel that depth of love that you can, the world would be at peace.”

Nezumi’s eyes were damp as he listened like Jonah’s words came right from heaven.

Jonah smiled. “Don’t let them tell you you’re broken or wrong. You know what ‘philia’ means? It means love. And love is never wrong. You know, homosexuality was once considered a paraphilia as well. And look how far we’ve come.” Jonah opened their arms wide, and to Shion’s surprise, Nezumi hugged them. Jonah rubbed Nezumi’s back, and kissed his cheek. “Mhm. You’ve had your love shamed and beaten, but they can’t beat it out of you. All you need is to be loved back together, honey. You got your pretty boy over there, and look, you got me too. It’s gonna happen for you like it does for everyone else. I promise.”

Nezumi sighed shakily, like he wasn’t sure he remembered how. “Jonah…” His voice sounded thick.

Jonah looked over Nezumi’s shoulder at Shion, their eyes also wet. “Her soul is touch starved. You look after her. Everyone needs a good hug every now and then.”

Shion nodded silently, heart aching at the scene before him.

Nezumi sobbed, body trembling as Jonah held him. “I know,” Jonah said softly. “You feel a lot, don’t you? It’s hard to keep that all inside. But you have to in this world. It’s harsh. It’s shitty. But not all the time, okay? Sometimes, you gotta drop your guard and let yourself feel everything. That takes a lot of practice, but I have faith in you.”

Nezumi nodded, and broke away, wiping his eyes. “Ugh.” He held out his hand to Shion, who took it. They stood up.

“It was nice meeting you all,” Shion said with a halfhearted smile.

Tired looking, drunk people waved. “Bye.”

It was time to head back anyway. It was getting dark, and Shion was exhausted. He’d never been much of an extrovert. They walked off down the hill in silence, the damp night air growing damper as they left the warmth of the flames.

It was probably about eight at night when Nezumi stopped walking suddenly in the middle of a parking lot. His eyes were glassy, and he dropped Shion’s hand.

“Are you okay?” Shion was concerned. “Nezumi?”

“Fine,” Nezumi responded dully. “Fine.”

Shion didn’t buy it. “They gave you a couple emergency clonazepam, right? Take one.”

Nezumi looked down at his pocket, but seemed unable to move. “Can’t. Can’t reach it.”

Shion sighed, reaching into Nezumi’s pocket and retrieving the small bag that held three yellow pills. “Here.” He put the pill in Nezumi’s mouth. “Swallow.” Nezumi struggled, but did as Shion said. Shion sighed at Nezumi’s stiff posture, and pulled him over to the side of a building where no cars would come and hit him. “You’re difficult,” Shion told him, frowning. He took Nezumi’s hands and tried to rub the stiffness out of them.

“That’s really weird what you’re doing, you know,” Nezumi informed him.

“Weirder than anything else we’ve done today?” Shion smirked. “This has been the most unusual day of my life.”

Nezumi just stared at him and didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he pulled his hands away. “Are you okay?”

Shion was confused. “Yeah. Of course. Why, did I space out?”

Nezumi shook his head. “You just seem different.” He shrugged. “Is there anything you want to do? Before we go back to the hotel.”

Shion thought about it. “Actually, yeah.” He remembered. “Did you see that community garden? It’s about two miles from the hotel. Can we go?”

Nezumi smiled. “Sure.” He took Shion’s hand, and allowed himself to be lead away. That seemed to be the thing they did now, holding hands. Shion couldn’t remember when they had started, but he liked it. It felt strangely childish. Maybe Nezumi needed a childhood friend. Sadly, Shion remembered he’d never had one.

When they arrived, the garden was lit with moonlight. The flowers had closed their petals for the night, but it still smelled like honey. Nezumi unchained the fence, and they made their way to a bench at the back behind a tomato cage. After a moment, Nezumi jumped up and walked over to some dark corner, returning with his fist closed around something. He sat back down next to Shion and opened his hand.

“This is the one you were named for, right? Aster?” He held several little purple flowers. They looked like daisies with tons of petals, except for the light purple tint.

Shion smiled. “Yeah. I’m surprised you knew.” A chill ran down his spine as Nezumi brushed Shion’s hair to the side, and stuck one of the asters behind his ear.

He had two more left in his hand, which he stared at intently. “Ah… Shion?”

Shion understood. He handed Nezumi the lighter.

Nezumi took it wordlessly and looked touched that Shion could tell what he wanted. A strange look came to his eyes, and he kissed Shion on the cheek. Shion blushed. Nezumi turned back to the little flowers, like nothing had happened. The way he held them, like they were something so significant and sacred, touched Shion’s heart. As he flicked the lighter, Shion thought he felt a rush of what Nezumi might feel. It wasn’t just burning. It was ceremony. It was religion. It crawled up his neck and sent his head spinning. His heart hammered, and he gasped with reverence and a strange fascinated horror as the small burning flower became a metaphorical surrogate for himself. Fear and attraction at once. If this was one tenth of what Nezumi felt, he understood. “Oh…” Shion breathed as the fire reached Nezumi’s fingertips and died. “I see.”

Nezumi looked at him, one unburnt flower still in hand. “You feel it?” He asked softly.

Shion nodded. “I felt it.” They held eye contact, a moment of true understanding between them for the first time. Then, surprising even himself, Shion leaned in and kissed Nezumi softly, lingering only for a moment. Nezumi blinked once when they parted, and dropped the unburnt flower. He stuck the lighter in his pocket and that was that. No more burning. A peace they could both feel settled down on them from the night air.

Shion stared off into space for a long moment. He may have had a seizure. He couldn’t tell. When he came back, he glanced at Nezumi, who was crying. Not loudly, and not with any expression, just silent tears fell down his cheeks as he stared at his lap.

“Hey, are you…” _Okay?_ It seemed like the wrong thing to say, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

Nezumi nodded. “I think I’m attracted to you.”

Shion frowned at the odd phrasing. “Oh...kay?”

Nezumi took Shion’s hand again, still staring at his lap. “You don’t understand. That’s never happened before. I’ve never felt… for a _person…”_

Shion’s eyes widened with understanding. “Oh.” He still didn’t know what to say. He stood. “Let’s go back to the hotel, okay? It’s getting late. And… I’m kinda still a little drunk.”

Nezumi stood, still avoiding eye-contact. “Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SEE? I can write sweet things too.


	8. Married at First Sight

In all honesty, their arrival at the hospital was anticlimactic. Where the prison was beige, the hospital was white. Where the prison had cells, the hospital had curtains. They were put into scrubs yet again, this time of a gentle blue. The most dramatic difference was in the way they were treated. Like they were fragile. Nurses watched them carefully in the courtyard or in the lobby, and therapists met with them several times a day in groups, independently, or for lectures, and there was always someone to make sure they were in bed safely at night.

Shion loved it. Nezumi distrusted it. They stuck together as they figured the place out. Within a matter of weeks, the two were inseparable. There was hardly thirty minutes at a time in which they were apart. Their therapists began to grow concerned with their behavior. Waiting outside the doors of the therapist's offices for each other, sitting together at meals, and in the lobby, and spending their entire courtyard time outside together.

“We’d like to try an experiment.” One therapist approached them after a group session. “If you two would stay here for a moment after everyone else leaves, I’ll explain what I’d like to try.”

Hesitantly, Nezumi and Shion agreed. They sat down across from her, and waited as the last person left the room.

“So?” Nezumi asked.

“Well, I’m so glad that the two of you are friends, and I don’t want to discourage that if it’s healthy. However, my colleagues and I are growing a bit concerned that this is developing into a dangerous codependency.” She folded her hands over her lap.

“So?” Nezumi asked again.

“So we’d like to separate the two of you. Just for a while. To see how things go.” She tilted her head like she was trying to look friendly.

Shion’s stomach dropped. “Why?”

“Because we want to make sure that the progress the two of you are making will hold up without relying on each other. Don’t you want to be independent?” She smiled warmly.

_Not really,_ Shion thought to himself. He’d honestly never pictured it being a problem, since he hadn’t planned on leaving the hospital. He figured the two of them would go on to be lifers like the guy who kept punching himself in the head, or the guy who flapped his arms. If that was the case, who cared if he and Nezumi spent all their time together? They’d be together for life.

“We _can_ be apart,” Nezumi argued. “This is a small hospital. What else are we supposed to do?” He sounded combative, but he couldn’t repress the nervous tic in his shoulder.

“Well, there’s another small ward on the east side, where the short term patients stay. One of you could go over there for… let’s say five days? Just to see how we do.” She gestured the pen she held between the two of them.

“Aren’t we lifers?” Nezumi asked, voicing the question on Shion’s mind. “What does it matter how we’d deal in the real world?”

She tutted. “Now, don’t say that. You have a chance to get into programs that would allow you to get a job, and even go outside with a watch anklet. Who knows, in a few years, you could even be living on your own with only occasional visits from a probation officer.” She smiled at Shion. “And he might be let go for good.”

Shion’s heart stopped. “I might?” He felt numb. Was there seriously a chance for him to leave?

The therapist nodded. “Yes. Depending on how your trial goes. We’ll work with whatever your new charges are.”

Shion had spoken to his lawyer recently. If that was true, and he got his charges reduced to manslaughter or something…

“Also, we need to be sure of the full extent of the damage done to your brain from the seizures. Which is another reason why I want to try this.” Her pen hovered over her notepad. “So, are we in agreement?”

“Do we have a choice?” Nezumi scoffed.

“It would be better if you did this happily.” She hummed.

“So, in other words, no.” Nezumi rolled his eyes. “Gotcha.” He stood up and reached for Shion’s hand instinctively before realizing what he was doing and dropping his hand at his side. “So, should I pack or should he?”

“Shion, we were hoping to move you.” She nodded at him. “We think you’ll fit in better with the short-term patients.”

“You think he’s less crazy than me,” Nezumi intoned. “Can we cut the decision theater? You’re making him move to the short term ward because he can keep a better face in public.”

“Well, there was some debate between which of you we should move-” She began.

“Because he’s albino? Or because his scars are easier to see than mine? So he looks scarier even though he’s nicer.” Nezumi crossed his arms. “I get it. Look, it’s fine. Move us around. Keep us apart. Just be upfront about it.”

The therapist cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, anyway, we’ll see you to the short stay ward as soon as you can be ready, Shion.” She stood and opened the door for them to leave the room. “I thank you for your cooperation.”

Shion grabbed onto Nezumi’s arm the second they were out of her view. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Just make it seem easy,” Nezumi told him, taking his hand. “Prove to them they’re being stupid.”

“They’re not being stupid!” Shion wrapped his arms around Nezumi’s waist. “We really don’t have other friends.” He leaned his forehead on Nezumi’s shoulder. “We haven’t been apart since we met. Maybe it is unhealthy.”

“No it’s not.” Nezumi played with Shion’s hair absently. “It’s just their job to prove that people have problems. It’s how they get paid.”

“Shion!” Someone shouted his name and the two jumped apart. “Are you ready to go?” A nurse was staring at them humourously. “I got your toothbrush, you don’t really own anything else, so… I figured you two would be saying goodbye rather than getting ready.”

Shion hummed nervously, shifting his weight. “Ah… Okay. Yeah.” He looked back at Nezumi nervously. “Bye.”

“See you in five days.” Nezumi smiled sadly.

Shion glanced back at the nurse before giving Nezumi a quick peck on the lips and trotting away. “Okay, let’s go.”

She lead him out through the halls, still grinning. “I can’t believe they’re making you do this…” She laughed. “It seems a little ridiculous to me. But they wanted to study codependency in prison inmates, and… Well, I guess you two aren’t exactly typical, but they want funding, so they gotta write a report on y’all. Don’t tell anyone I told you that.”

“They’re researching us?” Shion asked nervously.

“Yeah. But you didn’t hear it from me.” She winked. “Honestly, I tried to say y’all are just in love, it’s not some codependent obsession.” She grinned at Shion’s shocked expression. “What, like you’re keeping it a secret from the entire hospital? No, we all know. Well… The nurses all know. Unfortunately, the people that get opinions… or maybe they just want a case.”

Shion blushed and stared at the ground.

“Aw, Shion, honey… Did you really think you were being subtle?” She clapped a hand on his back. “There are cameras in places you wouldn’t expect.” She opened the door to the short stay ward, ignoring Shion’s horrified expression.

“Oh my god…” Shion whispered as she shoved him, still blushing fiercely, into the lobby.

“Room 16. Go meet your roommate.” She laughed and closed the door behind her as she left.

Slowly, Shion shuffled his way down the hall, trying to swallow his embarrassment. Everything was forgotten, however, when he opened the door to his new room to the sound of loud barking. “What the--” A small… person… was crouched on the floor, tangled hair covering their face. They were barking at Shion loudly. “Um…” Shion waved. “Hello.”

The dog person stared at Shion apprehensively.

“Um…” Shion looked around the room for help. “Do you… Can you talk?”

“Can you _read?”_ The dog person questioned. “This isn’t your room.”

A nurse came jogging in, looking put-upon. “This is his room, Inukashi. You have to share.”

“I don’t _want_ to!” The dog growled. “I never had a roommate before!”

“Well, we tried, didn’t we? But you kept biting them. We’re low on space, please don’t bite this one.” The nurse rubbed his eyes wearily. “My shift is almost over, just… Don’t bite this one.”

Shion edged over to his bed warily. “Don’t worry, I’ll spend most of my time in the lobby.” He put his toothbrush on the nightstand. “Please don’t bite me.”

The dog-person approached him, sniffing his clothes. “You smell like the hospital already. Where did you come from?”

“From… from the hospital... I’m just changing rooms, I live here.” Shion explained, backing away.

“You _live_ here? Why? Are you from residence?” The dog-person growled. “I don’t wanna room with a maniac. He looks like he’s sixteen, did his parents put him in residence?” The dog-person turned back to the nurse.

“I… I don’t know.” The nurse held up his hands in surrender. “Come on, you don’t want to be chained up, do you? Look, I gotta go. If I hear anything happen, you’re getting restrained.” He left the room slowly.

“Where are you from?” They poked Shion in the chest. “Who put you here?”

“I’m going to the lobby…” Shion backed towards the door carefully.

“Answer me, white boy.” The dog growled.

“I’m Japanese…”

“Who put you here?” The dog followed as Shion left the room.

“Who put _you_ here?” Shion countered.

“The police.” The dog tilted their head challengingly. “Your turn.”

“The police,” Shion responded.

“Bullshit, the police don’t dump people in residence. They’d send you here or to jail.” The dog scowled.

“Alright, I came from jail then.” Shion rolled his eyes and took off down the hall as fast as he could without running. The dog followed him closely.

“No, you’re tiny.”

“I’m an _adult.”_ Shion sighed, annoyed. “Fine, I’ll tell you. Damn. I came from prison. I’ve been in residence for a while, though.”

“What’d you do?”

Shion sat down at a table in the middle of the room, where he could be in full view of the nurses. “That’s my business.”

The dog sat down next to him, still glaring through narrowed eyes. “Tell me.”

Shion sighed, wishing Nezumi was there. It was going to be a long five days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAMN! This took forever to upload. Sorry! I meant to do it last night, but... I fell asleep. Oh well. Here you go, anyway.


	9. Survivor

Nezumi sat on his bed staring blankly at the wall. It was the third day without Shion and it was harder than expected. He managed to fake it for the therapists, but he was getting increasingly anxious. He was viciously restraining himself from asking for clonazepam, but without it the panic attacks were hard to conceal. He hadn’t had an unmedicated panic attack in quite a while, and he was struggling to remember how he used to deal with it. Ah. That’s right. He split into two parts: his body and his brain. If he put his energy into keeping his body under control, his mind would vaporize. He would be left wide-eyed and lost in a world he could barely see. Struggling against catatonia, he would walk down the hall in a daze, looking empty and zombified as his mind waged war against him. If he put his energy into controlling his mind, his body would turn to jello. The muscles in his thighs spasmed, his hands shook, and he found himself unable to stand.

To look normal, he had to control his body. He sat in the cafeteria playing cards or something with a couple other zombies. None of them really knew what they were doing, so they just moved the cards around and tried not to get noticed by the nurses. After some time, Nezumi managed to crush the dangerous thoughts in his mind, and become empty. A general terror shook his spine and tingled into his toes, but that was fine. Without thought, the terror had nothing to grab onto and resided as general anxiety in a sort of halo around him. His eyes were out of focus, and it was all he could do to continue pushing cards at random across the table.

The nurses never cared. They assumed the patients were stupid, and repetitive, pointless motion was normal. A man in the corner had been counting backwards from a thousand for the past hour, and he kept getting stuck on twenty two. Nobody cared. So long as nobody was hurting themselves or others, it was fine.

The difficult part was when he met with his therapist one on one. He would have to bite the bullet and let the panic come back in order to speak. He hoped desperately he wasn’t shaking too visibly.

“It’s been three days, are you doing fine? Making new friends?” Her lipstick went over the edges of her lips, and it was too shiny and the wrong color. Nezumi wanted to tear her mouth off and wash it in the sink.

“I’m doing fine. Yeah, I… I was just hanging out with some guys in the cafeteria. We were playing cards.” Ouch. Too monotone. He needed variation, which meant letting go of a little more control.

“That’s nice. So, tell me about Shion.” She had asymmetrical lines around her eyes. There was tape on her desk. If Nezumi could tape her eye wrinkles flat, maybe he wouldn’t feel so nauseous.

“What about Shion? He’s all we’ve been talking about these past three days.” Nezumi scowled. That sounded good. Her curtains were too loose, and her dustbin was too full. All the carpet in this room could easily be lit on fire. The door was far away, and the window was too high to jump from. Nezumi edged over closer to the door from where he sat on the couch.

“Well, that is the reason we’re doing this experiment.” Her smile was fake. If you don’t have the acting skills to smile with your eyes too, don’t bother smiling. “I want to know a little more about how you feel about him.”

Nezumi tried really hard not to slur his words when he spoke. “He’s annoying. I don’t know. He was the only one I knew, but he’s annoying.”

“That’s all you feel for him?” The therapist tried to lead him. Nezumi wasn’t listening, however, because he noticed the yellow on her teeth. So, she was a smoker. Did she ever smoke in here? Where did she toss her butts? In that dustbin? Could there still be lingering sparks? There probably were. 

_I always think that, it never happens._  
But sometimes it does! Sometimes it can! Why not now?  
But why now? It never happens. And even if it did, it wouldn’t spread.  
Of course it would spread! That’s what fires do! They burn and burn until there’s nothing left.  
But I like fire, couldn’t I just make it seem nice?  
Hahaha, no. This one’s going to kill you. Right now. IT’S GOING TO KILL YOU RIGHT NOW LOOK OUT! 

“What are you thinking?” She pulled him out of his spiral.

Fear turning quickly to anger, he glared at her. “I think Shion’s ass looks edible, and when he gets back I’m gonna fuck him sane. Is that what you want to hear? Or maybe this: something about him calms me down and I get really happy, but the second you take him away from me, oh my god! My world just turns upside down. How did I ever survive the nineteen years before I met him? It’s not like I ever had any other friends. It’s not like I ever had anyone else cling to me for support because he’s never been away from his mommy before.” Nezumi stared at her blankly, the adrenaline pumping through his veins making the words roll off his tongue easily. “I know you’re using us as an individual case study to get funding for a prison wives study or something. So, would it be better if I just gave you what you wanted to hear? We took care of each other, okay? We were kids, and we got stuck in prison for life. Then by some stroke of fate, both our cases were reopened. We were told we could leave together and were dropped in permanent residence at a psych ward. Together. So is it really some mystery that we stuck together through that too? You think you’re proving something by separating us, but all you’re doing is taking away the one friend I have in this place, and you wonder why I’m upset! It’s not codependency, it’s terror and loneliness. I’m scared, and so is he. Is that what you want me to admit?” Nezumi’s fists clenched and his chest was tight with anger, but it subdued his panic and hurt his therapist’s feelings so it was good.

That’s when the therapist said the one thing she should never have said. “I heard there was a time Shion was in solitary confinement for over two weeks. During that time, it’s reported you tried to kill yourself. Do you remember this event and why it took place?”

Nezumi’s vision tunneled. Of course he remembered. He remembered the crushing horror of losing Shion to madness, watching him spiral into a kind of insanity Nezumi had never seen. When Shion had been shut in the hole, Nezumi had been certain he would never return. Nezumi had been faced with eternity alone. He knew he’d never get better, he knew he’d never get another chance to be free, and he knew he’d never see Shion as himself again. So, yeah. He’d hung himself with his bedsheets one night, wanting to just be done with it all.

He’d woken up in the hospital with bruises around his neck, Shion lying unconscious in the bed next to him covered in scars. He’d listened to the muttered stories between the doctors about potato peelers and broken wrists and epilepsy.

He’d also heard the cries of NAMI, and the babble of state-appointed lawyers, and Shion’s mother’s whispered pleas for her son to heal.

“I remember.” It was like the breath had been stolen from Nezumi’s lungs.

“Why would you do this?” she asked, crossing her legs.

Nezumi had no words. There was only a deep seated pain in his chest, and the almost desperate urge to lunge at the therapist with everything he had.

“Are you with me?” Her calming voice cut through the ringing in his ears.

“Yeah.” He wanted to cry. “He was a child when he walked in.” His voice was weak, but the words that had been stuck in his throat were suddenly on the tip of his tongue, and there was nothing he could do but to speak. It was weakness, he realized, admitting all of this to a stranger who wanted his story to sell for cash, but it was someone who was willing to hear. “When he snapped, it was the deepest insanity I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t talk to him. He got violent. He started speaking in weird, broken sentences, then suddenly he didn’t speak real words at all. Just gibberish babble. They were afraid he’d kill me, so they threw him in the hole. One time his mom asked to visit me.” Nezumi blinked back frustrated tears. “She wanted to know how he was doing, and she wanted to know he had a real friend inside the walls. I didn’t lie to her. I told her Shion was gone for good. It broke her heart, but I think she still loved him. Even though he was sick and violent.” A jealous tone came to his voice. “She didn’t give up on him.”

“How do you feel about that?” the therapist asked.

“Like he doesn’t deserve it. He doesn’t deserve someone that good.” Nezumi scowled. “She kept checking in on him, asking for reports through me. She wanted me to look after him.” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how she could ask a thing like that.”

“Why doesn’t Shion deserve a loving mother?” the therapist asked, annoyingly.

“That’s not loving. That’s… that’s way more than love. That’s more than she owes him.” He folded his arms, eyes glinting challengingly.

“Do you think you could be jealous?” She made a note on her computer. “Let me put it to you that he does deserve this. And so did you. You deserved more than you got, he doesn’t deserve less.”

Nezumi shrugged, looking away.

She hummed, considering. “Well, let me ask, why did you look after Shion? It was reported from the hospital that you kept him from looking irrational in front of the guards for a long time. Why did you do this?”

“His mom asked me to,” was Nezumi’s short answer.

“But you don’t owe him, do you?” She clicked a little more on her keyboard.

“I owe his mom. She pushed NAMI to take my case. She’s the reason I’m not in prison right now,” Nezumi countered. “I owe her everything. And if she wants me to protect her son, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“You’re telling me that Shion’s incidental? You feel nothing for him but obligation?” She sounded skeptical.

“That’s right,” Nezumi affirmed, staring her straight in the eye.

“You know, I’m not inclined to believe that.” She smiled patronizingly. Nezumi wanted to punch her so bad.

“You don’t have to believe anything. I’m telling you how it is.” Nezumi smiled back.

“Do you want to know what I think?” She asked, not really meaning he had a choice.

“You’re gonna tell me regardless, don’t ask things if I don’t have a choice.” Nezumi shot her a disgusted look. He hated things like that.

“Hm. Well, I think that you do care for him. Don’t think I only watch you while you’re in my office, I’ve been keeping a close eye on the two of you.”

“Creep.”

“I think you care for him as more than just a friend. So, are you ready to cut the pretense and talk to me, or do I have to make five days ten?” She smiled again.

Oh, wow. Nezumi understood the power move. She was holding Shion hostage in exchange for his honesty. “Keep him as long as you want.” Nezumi found himself fighting, regardless.

“Maybe a month would be a better time frame to see how you cope.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully.

Nezumi’s throat tightened, and his barely forgotten panic came back. “I…”

“Or, you know, if you wanted to be upfront with me now, we could be done with all of this.” She nodded at him furtively.

Dammit. He ticked. The therapist smiled like she knew she had won. Nezumi clenched his fists. “That was a dick move.” Through his anxiety, he felt a bit of respect.

“So?”

“Fine.” He relaxed into the couch, no longer worried about hiding the panic. He was posturing. His arm wrapped around the back of his head awkwardly, looking broken. His head tilted far to the side, and his heels lifted off the floor.

“Do you need clonazepam?” She asked.

“Yes,” Nezumi admitted, relieved. She handed him a chalky yellow pill and a glass of water, which he accepted gratefully.

She looked at him with a worried expression. “You’re diagnosed schizophrenic.”

“I’m _not.”_ Nezumi insisted. “I’m phobic. And I thought we were going to talk about Shion.”

“Do you hear voices?” She asked, ignoring him.

He unwrapped his arm from around his neck and tried to look calm. “No.”

“Is that a lie?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly. “I want to get a more accurate read on you, so I need you to be honest with me. I’m going to keep you for a double session, but I can make it triple if I need to. You want to get better, don’t you? I want to send you to assisted living. As much as I enjoy you, I don’t want you here forever. So, honestly, and I will believe whatever your next answer is, do you hear voices?”

Feeling defeated, Nezumi nodded.

“What do they sound like?”

Nezumi gulped, eyes blinking rapidly. “They’re in my head. Not usually from outside. They just talk to each other. Not to me. They don’t tell me to burn anything. I don’t mind them.”

She nodded. “Do you see things?”

He nodded again. “A lot. A lot more than I hear things. But I can figure out they aren’t real pretty fast. And I don’t usually interact with them. It’s just extra things. Like, an extra person or chair. I don’t mind it. I’m not schizophrenic, I’m not crazy, I just see things sometimes.”

“I believe you.” She nodded. “I don’t think you’re schizophrenic either.”

“You don’t?” Nezumi asked skeptically.

“I think it’s a symptom of anxiety. I think you have panic disorder. That’s all. People love to diagnose schizophrenia, but it doesn’t suit you. You have none of the disorganized symptoms. Other than mild hallucinations, you’re functional. And phobias are inherently delusional. That’s why they’re irrational. Severe phobias can even look like psychosis, so I’m not surprised by your previous diagnoses.” She typed some things into her computer. “Now, I want to know about Shion. I want to know how he helps _you.”_

And just like that, Nezumi trusted her. All the doctors he had seen, all the medications he had been prescribed, all the hundreds of diagnoses, and finally someone believed him. “He doesn’t hate me.” Nezumi admitted. “Even when I’m in a bad place, he doesn’t hate me. After I come out of it, he doesn’t treat me like I’m fragile or annoying.”

“I think it’s more than that he doesn’t hate you. I think he loves you,” she told him, smiling gently. “And I think you love him too.”

Nezumi didn’t know what to say. He just nodded mutely, throat tight.

“I’d like to take you off your antipsychotics. Slowly. Your next injections are due in a week, so we’re going to skip that and put you on a light dose of abilify, which we’ll wean you off of over the next month.” She typed a few more things into her computer and hit print. Her printer hastily spat out a black and white printed paper. “But, if you’re still concealing things from me, you don’t have to change your medication. I’m leaving it up to you. Bring this to the pharmacist, or throw it away. It’s your choice. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She handed Nezumi the paper and opened the door, gesturing him out.

“I thought I had a double session?” He asked, walking towards the door in a haze.

“You don’t need it. Go have dinner with everyone else.” She smiled warmly.

Nezumi nodded, feeling choked up. “Th-thanks…” He walked through the halls, barely noticing where he was going until he found himself at the pharmacist’s desk, clutching the paper that meant his freedom from drugged haze. “I… have a prescription to fill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOO Remember way back then when Shion woke up in the hospital when he found out about his epilepsy??? Remember the bruises??? Look how prepared I am. I brought it back around. Yes.


	10. Lockdown

When reunion came, it hit Nezumi hardest. He was sitting alone in the cafeteria, knee bouncing anxiously. He sipped a juice box absentmindedly, staring at the door. Every time it opened, his ears perked up like a dog, and nearly every time he went back to picking at his breakfast, disappointed. The scratch of his scrubs as his knee bounced was annoying. People were eating too quietly. Why didn’t anyone have any energy? The door opened with a creak, and Nezumi glanced up again, hopefully. The second he saw a glint of white hair, he shot out of his seat, nearly overturning his chair. “Shion!” he called without thinking.

Shion looked up and grinned. “Nezumi!”

Nezumi ran forward to embrace him. Their hearts beat rapidly against each other, and Nezumi was struggling not to cry.

A cheer for them issued from the cafeteria, half mocking, half congratulatory.

They didn’t let go of each other even as the therapist walked up and asked to see them both in her office. They followed her, hand-in-hand, down the hallway to the small, cozy room. They sat on the patient couch together, still holding hands.

The therapist considered them calmly. “So, how do you feel?”

“I’m glad to be back,” Shion offered. “My roommate was kinda scary.”

She nodded, and turned to Nezumi. “Well?”

“I dunno.” Nezumi wanted to stay quiet. He really didn’t want to admit how ecstatic he felt at the moment.

“Are you happy to be back together?” she prompted.

“Yeah!” Shion bounced happily. “I missed him.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Nezumi shrugged, gripping Shion’s hand tighter protectively.

“How did you feel being apart?” she continued, addressing Nezumi directly.

“Kinda lonely,” Shion admitted. “But I made a few new friends, and that was cool.”

“Nezumi?”

He scowled. “I mean, I like being together more than being apart.” He shrugged, leaning closer in towards Shion. “So I’m glad he’s back.”

Shion leaned his head down on Nezumi’s shoulder, sighing. “So, do we pass?”

The therapist didn’t answer. “You two maintain a lot of physical contact. Are you sexually active?”

“Yeah,” Shion said.

“No,” Nezumi answered at the same time.

Shion patted Nezumi’s hand. “They have cameras everywhere.”

“...Yeah,” Nezumi admitted.

She made a note. “And before you went to prison were you drawn towards same sex relationships?”

“Yeah,” Shion admitted easily again.

“What do you mean, ‘before prison?’” Nezumi scoffed. “What, when I was twelve? I don’t know. I like fire, not people.”

“Okay.” She nodded neutrally. “Have you ever had any other partners?”

“No,” Shion answered first again.

“...Define partner,” Nezumi asked.

“Human, and consensual,” she clarified.

“Define consensual.”

“Not by force, and not in exchange for your own material gain.” She frowned at him slightly. So did Shion.

“Then no,” Nezumi answered.

She nodded clinically again. “Okay.

It went on like this for about an hour. She bombarded them with questions about sex and love and life and the future. Shion answered happily every time. Nezumi tried to avoid as many questions as possible.

They slept in the same bed that night, and nobody stopped them. For the next few months following, they were inseparable. Nobody questioned it. Finally, Shion’s case was closed yet again, his charges reduced to involuntary manslaughter. He was to be let go, under the condition that he return to the hospital for monthly check ups.

The day Shion packed his things to leave was the first day Nezumi’s heart broke. Before the end of their story, there would be two more. Neither Nezumi nor Shion knew that yet, so both stood with tears in their eyes, but hope in their hearts as Shion left the hospital with his mother.

“I love you,” Shion whispered thickly, clutching his small bag of belongings against his chest. “I’m going to see you again, though. I’m going to visit you every week.”

Nezumi nodded, reaching out to touch Shion’s cheek. “Not goodbye. See you later.” He smiled weakly.

Shion laughed forcibly. “Yeah. See you soon.” They kissed deeply for a long moment before breaking apart. And just like that, Shion was gone. Nezumi stood alone in the cold hospital. Not cold like ice, but cold in the way an empty room is cold. Cold like a stone wall. Hard, and impersonal. Nezumi had never had anyone, but suddenly he realized he had no one. He was a number in the great prison industrial system, and this hospital was just another holding cell for him to be while the bureaucracy waited for him to die. Shion had been his first real brush with normality since he was very small. Now, he stood within the clinical walls and realized that nothing meant anything.

We’re born to nothing, we live for nothing, and we die with nothing. The truth of that thought hit him square in the chest, and dried his tears. It was comforting, in a way, to know he had no purpose nor place. To know he wasn’t wasting his life within the walls, because what’s a life to waste? Nothing.

That was the attitude he maintained through his trials. All the courtrooms, hospital rooms, jail cells were the same, because everything is the same forever. Who cares? Fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen? Why do anything? Why not do everything?

The gavel resonated through the last courtroom he would ever step in. Guilty of first-degree arson, and with no additional murder charges, he was sentenced to twenty years in prison.

Hm. Was that really better than life? It meant getting out at forty, suddenly locked out of the place he had called home since childhood. It meant being forced onto the streets where he had no job, no family, no place to sleep.

All he could do was smile at the sentence. All he could do was laugh as the room pressed in on him, walls shrinking but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The courtroom was silent as Nezumi broke down into hysterical laughter, so much so that he cried. Tears streamed down his face as the jury slowly filtered out of the room.

“Wait!” Nezumi stopped laughing suddenly. Several people who were leaving turned back around. The judge was staring at him intently. That’s when Nezumi’s heart broke for the second time. Terror and excitement thrummed in his head, and his hands twitched. He looked to the judge seriously. “Tell Shion I’m sorry.”

With one last smile, he grabbed the lighter from his attorney's purse, and set her hair on fire. She screamed, and people rushed to help. Nezumi lit her flowy, iridescent top on fire as well. It burned and curled in that satisfying plastic-y way. Next, he lit his papers on fire, setting her briefcase aflame. That’s all he managed before someone grabbed him by the arms and shoved him to the floor.

A cop’s knee hit him hard in the back, and he groaned, shaking with anxiety and arousal. His hands were cuffed, and people were screaming, frantically running to do what they could. The fire alarm went off at that moment, and showers of cold water poured from the ceiling. Everything smelled like damp smoke, and Nezumi came unintentionally, moaning while he was chained up. He was dripping wet as they picked him up and dragged him from the courtroom. Dripping wet, sticky, in deep deep trouble, and smiling like a maniac.

He knew what to say. If being in prison had taught him anything, it was what to say to scare the police. “I’ll kill you all! I’ll kill you all and your entire family! I’ll do it from prison! You have no idea what I’m capable of!” He kicked violently until the cops tasered him. Then, his body went limp. Painful shocks jolted through his system, and he was hoisted over the shoulder of one of the officers before he was stuffed in the back of a car. He was sobbing with everything he had as they drove him away. He was mourning his life, meaningless as it was. He choked on his own breath as he screamed. “I’ll kill everyone in prison! I’ll kill everyone I meet!” His body was limp from exhaustion and terror, but he stuck to his convictions and kept doing what needed to be done.

This is how he was free. Freedom is just an illusion, and every person is as free as they want to be. Everybody has choices they can make. So, this was Nezumi’s choice. “Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!” He shouted the words again and again until his throat was bloody and they arrived at the jail.

He was injected with some sort of chemical, and he lost consciousness. When he woke up, his hands and feet were restrained against a bed. Even his head was strapped down so he couldn’t move. When he tried to struggle, he found his hips had been chained to the bed as well.

He was alone. It was dark. There was nothing. For so long, there was nothing. For days, he slept, or he didn’t sleep. There was no difference. The only way to record time was by the two times a day he was carefully unchained and given food before being lead to a bathroom. He adamantly refused all meals, to the point where they began force-feeding him through a tube and injections. That too, was his choice. From the moment his sentence was declared, that was Nezumi’s decision. Every choice he was offered, he would take. And with every choice, he would revolt and rebel. Until the day he died, he would fight. Fight to the death. Fight _for_ his death. Why not? What was the point of playing the game? What was the point of being alive?

With each passing day, the isolation grew worse. His muscles atrophied, and his stomach distended with malnutrition. The silence of his cell was enormous. It pressed against his ears, and forced it’s way down his throat. He heard voices, clear as day, resonating off the walls. They were all in his head, he knew, but they provided a welcome distraction from the loneliness. The darkness hurt his eyes, and his mind replaced it with swirling colors and hallucinations so vivid and intense it made him nauseous. They remained whether his eyes were open or shut, terrifying visions of flames and dragons and teeth and death.

At last, when they removed him from the cell, still strapped to his bed, he was able to see reality again. It was brief relief. Within a day, he was wearing orange in a tiny room with a heavily locked door and one small window with thick bars that was placed so far above his head, he couldn’t see out of it.

Nezumi waited. That was his choice, too. He waited because he needed to see Shion again. He needed to explain, and he needed to apologize. When Shion came to see him, he would be able to make one more choice. But until then, he waited. After all, time was infinite, and Nezumi’s time was worth nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UM! I'M SORRY! 
> 
> I really don't know how this happened, but I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to change some tags. Oh my god.


	11. Deadliest Catch

When Shion heard the news, it shook him to the bone. He received a call in which a robot voice informed him he was being contacted by an inmate from a correctional facility. Of course, he accepted, happy to hear Nezumi’s voice. When Nezumi explained that he was still in prison, and would remain in prison for an amount of time he left vague, Shion couldn’t believe it. Every muscle in his body contracted and he fell to his knees screaming. Little jolts of electricity dashed through his muscles, and his vision tunneled. His mother came home from work fifteen minutes later to find him passed out on the floor, limbs twitching with painful seizure.

His mother drove him to the prison a week later. Shion’s driver’s license had been permanently revoked, and besides, he was in no state to drive. He cried the whole way there, feeling feverish and afraid. He was on mood stabilizers which only served to make his anguish feel futile and his sobs unsatisfactory. Like the need to sneeze disappearing the second you take a breath.

He held his breath, repressing all of his emotions as the car pulled into the gravel parking lot with a crunch. He walked with a careful, hunched posture like someone who’d been sick for days and didn’t want to upset the delicate balance their body had struck. His mother waited in the car, trying to give him his space.

Shion felt claustrophobic as he stepped inside the prison walls, going through the same old routine. They patted him down carefully, and made him sign some papers. Then, he was lead into a room he’d never seen before.

Of course. This was maximum security prison. Shion sat down on a cement bench that faced a plexiglass window with a few holes drilled through. His legs shook nervously as he looked through to the empty room on the other side. Any second, Nezumi would step through, and they would talk.

Shion audibly gasped when the door on Nezumi’s side opened, and a familiar figure was lead in by a guard who shut the door behind him, and uncuffed his hands through a small slot in the door she had walked through. Silently, Nezumi walked forward and sat. His skin was pale, his eyes looked bruised with exhaustion, and there was no trace of expression in his features.

Shion struggled not to dissolve into tears yet again. “Nezumi…” He reached forward to touch, but the window was in the way.

“Let me explain,” Nezumi said dully, as if he had been rehearsing that very line over and over in the mirror. “I need to tell you why I did this.”

Shion gulped, and nodded shakily.

Nezumi took a breath, ready to deliver his clearly practiced speech. “It’s too late for me. They gave me twenty years. When I got out, I’d be forty. I don’t have an education, I can’t drive, I have no money, and with my record, I’d be unemployed and homeless. In all likelihood I’d either reoffend just to get back indoors, or I’d die on the streets by myself.”

“I’d be willing-” Shion began desperately.

“No,” Nezumi interrupted. “You can’t wait twenty years. You can’t. And what’s more, I won’t let you. You have a chance here, Shion. You got free. Really free.” He sighed like the air in the room was too heavy for his shoulders. “But I’m free too. That’s why I did this. Because walls don’t make you free or not. They’re only walls, after all. And if you can’t break them down, you gotta go with what you have on the inside. I still have choices. They can’t take away everything.” He smiled lightly, eyes rimmed with red. “So I fought. And I burned a lady. And they gave me life again.”

It felt like a hand had crushed Shion’s esophagus. His mouth fell open and his eyes bulged so wide it was painful. But nothing was as painful as the knowledge that for him, Nezumi would never leave that little room. He would never exist beyond the plexiglass and dust and orange jumpsuits of this room. From now until forever, their relationship was confined into this closet of a space where they could only talk under heavy supervision, recorded by microphones and cameras on the wall.

Shion sobbed. “I’m sorry, Nezumi, I’m sorry. How could this happen? How? How?!”

“Shh,” Nezumi calmed him, placing a hand on the glass. “Don’t have a seizure. Stay with me for a little while longer.”

“I want to stay with you forever!” Shion protested, pulling at his hair. “I love you! I love you so much, you can’t leave me!”

Nezumi’s lip trembled. “I love you too.” He took a shaky breath. “That’s why I have to ask you a very important question, and you can’t answer me just yet. I need you to take some time to think about it.”

Shion wiped his eyes uselessly with his hands and nodded.

Suddenly, Nezumi looked uncomfortable. “Alright. No matter what happens, I’ll be here for the rest of my life. So, the way I see it, I have two options. I can have a long stay, or I can have a short one. Do you understand?”

Shion shook his head, trying to put together what that could possibly mean.

Nezumi sighed again, staring down at his lap like he was ashamed. “I’ll be here the rest of my life. That could be a long time, or it could be a _very short time._ Okay?”

“Okay? I don’t-” Shion’s voice cut off as horrible understanding rushed over him like a bucket of cold water. “No.”

“Hear me out-”

“No!” Shion stood up suddenly. “You can’t!”

Nezumi just looked up at him calmly. “Why?”

“Because--!” Shion searched wildly for an answer. “Because I would miss you.”

“You’re going to miss me either way, I’m afraid. I’m never getting out.” Nezumi’s voice was much calmer. He sounded like he was explaining an interesting logic puzzle. “So here’s the thing-- Have a seat.”

Shion collapsed back onto the bench, everything within him gone.

Nezumi continued, “This works on two ends. For me, if my stay is long, then my stay is long. I’m twenty. If I die at sixty, then that’s forty years I’ve spent within these walls. But who knows, maybe I could make my life tolerable. Somehow.” He shrugged. “If my stay is short, I erase all that possibility. But it also means I’m gone. I’m out of here. No more prison, no more medication, no more panic, and no more fire. Right?”

Shion nodded mutely, unable to deny the logic of what Nezumi was saying.

“Good.” Nezumi nodded. “Now, I’m not completely selfish. I did think about you. So here’s how things look from your end. If my stay is long, you have two choices. You could leave, and never have anything to do with me again, but you’d leave knowing I was still here. You leave me, I don’t leave you. Or, you could spend your life having your mother drive you to prison once a week in order to see some inmate you accidentally fell in love with years ago. You’d lose your chance to meet someone new, to have your own life, and to forget this place. That’s what’s at stake if my stay is long.” He paused, choking a little on his words. “Or,” he continued, wiping his eyes. “My stay could be short. That’s me leaving you. You move on, easy as that. But you’d know that I wasn’t anywhere anymore. Understand?”

Shion nodded. The options seemed clear. But why explain them?

“I’m giving you a choice,” Nezumi told him. “Because I trust you, and because I love you, I’m giving you this choice. And it’s my choice to give that to you. Call it a gesture of gratitude. You saved me, Shion. I know who I am because of you.”

Shion paled. He felt sick. “You can’t do that to me.”

“You don’t have to give an answer. Let’s call that the third option. You can walk away, and I’ll decide on my own. You’ll never visit me again, and you’ll never know.” Nezumi returned to his dull, expressionless state.

Shion dropped his head in his hands, elbows leaning heavily on the small cement desk in front of him. “This is sick.”

“Yeah,” Nezumi agreed. “Life is sick.” When Shioin started shaking, Nezumi reached out to touch the plexiglass, looking concerned. “Hey, look at me.”

Struggling to stay focussed, Shion looked up, hyperventilating. “I can’t.”

“Shion, take my hand,” Nezumi encouraged, palm flat against the glass.

Shion raised his hand to the glass as well. It was cold, and unfriendly. There was barely a ghost of Nezumi’s soul through the glass, but Shion kept his hand there, pretending with all his might. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“I know.” Nezumi nodded, eyes watery. “This sucks for you most, doesn’t it? Whatever you choose, you’re the one living with the consequences.” He laughed wetly. “I thought about… You know I almost just disappeared. I thought about not calling you, and leaving you wondering what had happened. But… that seemed like an even worse betrayal than what I’m doing now. Or maybe I’m just selfish. I wanted to say goodbye.” Shion could feel the seizure creeping up his spine. He knew what was coming, and it was inevitable. Nezumi seemed to figure it out too. “I’ll see you next week, Shion. I’ll wait here one week. Understand? Can you hear me? One week.”

Shion nodded. “One week.” He fished through his pockets clumsily, and found a pen. He wrote himself a note on the back of his arm as the seizure got worse. _One week. Nezumi. Choose._

When his head hit the cement desk, a guard rushed in to get him. Leaning on her for support, Shion walked out of the room without a backwards glance. He made it to the car on his own, and crawled into the back seat while his mom looked on, concerned. “Just drive,” he told her as he finally succumbed to seizure and lost the ability to speak. 

He blacked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those of y’all who know me know how dark my stories can get.  
> Those of y’all who know me from Culture Shock know I like to write bonus stories at the end of each chapter. I thought you could use one after this.
> 
> The library in prison was not extensive. Really, it was more like a few shelves than a library. Shion hadn’t even bothered to go in until Nezumi dragged him there one day, swearing up and down that if Shion didn’t “Read one goddamn book I’m gonna drop every book you haven’t read on your head.”
> 
> Begrudgingly, Shion allowed himself to be pulled inside. Even though there were relatively few books available, Shion found himself overwhelmed by the choices. “Um… Do you have a recommendation?”
> 
> Nezumi was already wandering off, perusing the shelves on his own. “Uh… What? Oh. I dunno. I dunno what you like.” His eyes raked over every book on the shelf before he chose a thick white paperback and trotted off to a table.
> 
> Shion followed him, not knowing what else to do. “What’s that?”
> 
> Nezumi just pushed out a chair for Shion with his foot. “Sit.”
> 
> Shion did, absently playing with the hem of his shirt. “Ah, I didn’t pick a book.”
> 
> “I know,” Nezumi responded blankly. “I’m gonna read to you.”
> 
> Shion smiled. “Oh. Okay.” He watched the page at first, as Nezumi set about reading, but soon became enraptured by the sound of his voice, and just stared as his face expressed all the little emotional words. It was much better that way, to hear it aloud. Nezumi read like he was discovering each word for the first time as he said it. He savored each syllable and honored every word with the respect of a man of God reading sacred text.
> 
> “When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,  
> I all alone beweep my outcast state,  
> And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,  
> And look upon myself, and curse my fate,”
> 
> He read the words like a prayer, and Shion could plainly see how much this poem meant to him.
> 
> “Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,  
> Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,  
> Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,  
> With what I most enjoy contented least;”
> 
> How fitting, these words. How perfect their solitude and hopelessness to match the sour air of the prison. Shion felt a pang of sorrow in his chest.
> 
> “Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,  
> Haply I think on thee, and then my state,  
> Like to the lark at break of day arising  
> From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;”
> 
> Shion smiled. He couldn’t help it. He beamed. It was a love poem? His heart fluttered in his chest. He felt as though he were looking into Nezumi’s very soul. As though these words sprung from him anew, meant just for the two of them in this room, to be cherished by no one else.
> 
> “For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings  
> That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”
> 
> He finished. The last word rang out like the final note of a song, clear and true.
> 
> “That was beautiful,” Shion said honestly. “I’m really… That was beautiful.”
> 
> Nezumi nodded. “It’s Shakespeare. Sonnet 29.” He said the title like reading facts from a biology textbook, but Shion could tell it meant so much more.
> 
> “I can tell it means a lot to you,” Shion mused, biting his fingernail. “You’ve read it before?”
> 
> “I have it memorized,” Nezumi admitted. “It’s my favorite piece.”
> 
> “I’m glad you read it to me,” Shion said quietly. “I’m glad you brought me here.”
> 
> Nezumi nodded once, then sat in silence for a long moment. He stood, and put the book back on the shelf. “Pick something, you can’t stay illiterate forever.” He pulled a book at random off the shelf.
> 
> Shion smiled, and picked the book they had just been reading from. “A collection of Shakespeare’s Sonnets,” he read the cover. “I guess I’ll start here.”
> 
> Nezumi stared at him with a strangely affected expression, then shrugged, and returned to the table. “Whatever you want.”
> 
> Shion smiled, hugging the book to his chest as he rejoined Nezumi in their seats. It must have been hours they read. Neither spoke another word until the signal that it was time to return to the cells. That didn’t matter. Even without speaking, Shion felt this was the closest they’d ever been.


	12. The beginning of the end

One week, and Shion was lying on the couch with a migraine so bad he puked. Six days, and Shion was standing dully in front of a bowl of ice cream his mom had prepared. He couldn’t eat it. Five days, and Shion was rushed to the hospital for a grand mal seizure lasting ten straight minutes. Four days, and he was passed out in bed, anti-epileptics making him too sleepy to move. Three days, and he realized he needed to make a choice. Two days, and he cried because his choice was made. One day, and he was numb. He sat in the passenger seat of his mother’s car, staring glassily at the road ahead of them.

The guards patted him down, and he didn’t feel it. They guided him into the same room he had sat in a week ago, and he felt nothing. The door opened, and a dark figure stepped through. His cheeks were gaunt. His eyes looked hollow. His skin was waxen. He was dead already.

“Shion,” Nezumi acknowledged as the guard uncuffed his wrists.

“Nezumi…” Shion breathed, the first emotion he had felt all day swirling in his chest. Sadness. Not pity, not grief, just pure sadness that felt like ice water in his bones.

Nezumi sat before him, staring into Shion’s eyes like he knew it was the last time. Because it was. They drank each other in, committing every last detail to memory. A tear slid down Nezumi’s cheek, where he ignored it. He stuck a finger through one of the holes in the plexiglass, and Shion linked his finger with it. Their last embrace.

Shion could feel Nezumi’s pulse beating rapidly in his fingertip, and Shion wondered how many times it would beat before it stopped. It was a weak, fluttering pulse. Like holding a bird in your hand and feeling it breathe.

They sat in silence. For a million years, they sat in silence. In that silence, they grew old together. They loved and laughed and cried and screamed together. They fought and they made up, they kissed and they kicked each other. But mostly, they fell in love a million times for a million years.

Then, they were gone. All great loves die, and a million years isn’t too bad a run. Shion stood, and nodded. Nezumi did the same. They each walked out their separate doors into their separate lives and never would their paths cross again. The last heartbreak.

Shion sat calmly in the passenger’s seat of his mother’s car, and Nezumi sat on the metal bench of his lone prison cell. Shion, alone in bed, pulled the sheets up tightly under his chin. Nezumi did the same. Both were cold. Both were silent.

Both felt their love, their fire, their sickness and cure  
Their hopes, their desires, their vagues and their sures  
Slip away in the moment their eyes fluttered shut  
And peaceful rest fell down and swallowed them up  
Both felt pain so tight that it halted their breath  
And each would love the other until the moment of their death

 

EPILOGUE:

A roaring fire smoldered and consumed all it touched. The white hot flames licked the edges of a body, eating the bones and turning it to ash. The gray, meaningless ashes were swept together and put in a jar. The jar was taken by two shaking hands, and a mouth with a quivering lip kissed the brim.

“I love you so much,” the owner of the mouth and hands said with a tearful voice. “I’ll love you forever. Thank you for being in my life.”

The perfect location. A field by a small woods was bursting with purple wildflowers. The asters drank the ashes, and the ashes became the asters.

The one who had cast the dust stood crying. Helplessly. Hopelessly.

Far away, another prisoner hung himself, one too many days spent in solitary confinement. Far away, another heartbroken soul swallowed a handful of pills, or threw himself off the edge of a bridge, or found solace in the taste of a metal gun.

Far away, someone spasmed in seizure. Far away, someone was burning dandelions. Far away, someone was falling in love for the first time. The world is full of tragedies, and the world is full of love. The world is terror and love and psychotic rambling lost memories of childhood and last night. The world is philia and phobia and every move we make is seizure and random and meaningless.

Shion found that beautiful. Nezumi found that beautiful. Karan found it destructive and sad.

But it doesn’t matter their opinions. It doesn’t matter a word they say. Because what happened happened, and what could have been couldn’t have because it simply wasn’t.

And that’s all the world can ever be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, guys. Tell me your final thoughts in the comments.
> 
> Who do you think died? I had like three different endings in my head, and I couldn't pick, so I did them all. I want to know what your gut instinct is with the ending.


End file.
